How We Started
WESTERN SERVICE WORKERS ASSOCIATION (WSWA), and its subcommittee California Homemakers Association (CHA), began in Orange County in 1976 as an organizing drive by and for domestic and attendant care workers. Many WSWA members worked as domestic workers providing in-home attendant care for aged, blind and disabled recipients through the County-run, state-funded program called In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS).
History
Since 1976, WSWA has been implementing the unique, successful method of Systemic Organizing which enables anyone who dares to care and is willing to work to build an organization that unites low-income workers with students, professionals, small business owners, the faith community and others concerned and affected by the economic problems we face.
These are just a few of the victories WSWA has accomplished! There is so much more. To get involved, call WSWA (714) 835-9961.
April 1976
In April 1976, volunteer organizers started Orange County WSWA and California Homemakers Association (CHA) out of Carol Fleming’s tiny mobile home in Costa Mesa. Fleming was a CHA member in Sacramento who moved to Orange County and soon wrote to request a membership sign-up kit from the Sacramento CHA office. Carol was meeting many domestic workers and in-home caregivers; she recruited them and mailed filled-out membership applications and voluntary dues to Sacramento, each time requesting that an organizer be sent to Orange County to work with her to start an organizing drive in Orange County. Daily canvasses and house meetings began in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, and soon reached Garden Grove and Anaheim. WSWA established a base of operations in downtown Santa Ana that same year.
1977
In 1977, WSWA became known as an effective, fighting representative of the county’s in-home care workers and the 2500 recipients of the IHSS Program. WSWA organizers and members petitioned the county Department of Social Services and entered courtrooms of administrative hearing judges in battles for increased hours of care for aged, blind and disabled recipients, as workers were paid on a time-per-task formula and often not paid for all their hours of work.
WSWA responded to the call for emergency assistance for the victims of Philadelphia’s Cobbs Creek bombing and fire incident, after the US government dropped an incendiary bomb on the home of MOVE, a black liberation organization. The resulting fire then burned down two residential city blocks, wiping out the homes of many African American residents. WSWA supported with truckloads of food, furniture, clothing, over the counter medical supplies, and even organized shipping from LAX airport to transport items.
November 1985
October 1989
After the Loma Prieta Earthquake, Orange County WSWA mobilized students from the University of California Irvine, professionals, businesses and churches, as well as local WSWA members, to collect supplies and then join week-long caravans to deliver them to Oakland WSWA and Santa Cruz WSWA. Both were running Disaster Relief Units to local residents affected by the earthquake. Supplies included food, clothing and other necessities requested by the relief units.
May 1992
After the Rodney King beating and ensuing protests, the city of Los Angeles engaged in massive arrests and illegally took into custody 18,000 residents. WSWA opened a benefit office in LA and organized dozens of “Know Your Law” sessions to assist the many low-income residents who were detained.
Fall 2001
WSWA began a community-wide campaign to obtain the release of medical services paid for by the community under the Hill-Burton Act of 1946, established following WWII to enable hospitals across the country to borrow a collective $4 billion to expand, as long as they paid it back in the form of free care for low-income community residents who couldn’t afford treatment. Many hospitals received money but did not provide free care.
In September 2001 -September 2002, WSWA volunteer advocates obtained two operations utilizing Hill-Burton funds.
WSWA volunteers joined independent farm worker organizing drives to unite migrant farm workers to oppose the State of California’s illegal doubling of rents at state-run Office of Migrant Services Centers housing farm worker families. WSWA volunteers conducted Operation Camp Crew visits to workers at state-run Migrant Centers of Shafter and Arvin (Kern County) to assist in locating the 12,000 farm workers affected by the illegal rent increase. WSWA led mobilizations to the state capitol and state courts that resulted in the court ruling that the state had to return the $1.2 million in overcharged rents to the farm worker residents. Following the judgment, WSWA was part of the campaign to locate the workers and assist them in getting the stolen funds refunded.
2002
2005
In 2005, in-home care workers successfully mobilized to prevent the county from contracting out the state’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program to National Home Care Systems, Inc., a financial scheme to divert IHSS funds to a private profit-making company by cutting one-third of the hours of in-home care for low-income aged, blind and disabled. Over a period of five months, the Orange County Workers Benefit Council’s subcommittee “California Homemakers Association” organized informational picket lines, sent speakers to a series of public hearings and when ignored, regularly picketed the county administration building until county officials capitulated.
July 2002
WSWA won a victory following a four-month long campaign directed at securing Orange County’s compliance with federally recommended standard treatments for tuberculosis (TB) for adults over 35-years-old. WSWA’s community education campaign forced the county to comply with federal guidelines for latent TB treatment.
2011
In 2011 the Orange County Workers Benefit Council, a delegate body of leading WSWA members, attended public hearings before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and successfully lowered the proposed So Cal Edison electricity rate increase from $3.2 to $2 billion
Read the story of Jacinto, a leading WSWA organizer
Western Service
Workers Association
1717 N. Bush Street
Santa Ana, CA 92706
(714) 835-9961
Labor donated