Despite 'Peace' Plan, Labor Will Make Presence Known.

WHEN AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney promised labor peace at Democratic National Convention 2000, it appears that all he meant was that union demonstrations wouldn't target Democratic policies or disrupt the convention.

But even that may be a stretch.

Last week, officials of the Democratic Party, Staples Center and union locals announced a "labor peace" agreement. But it only specifies that workers at Staples Center won't do anything to disrupt the event; it also established the arena as a union house thereafter.

The bottom line, however, is that union rank-and-file will not only "be inside the hall," as Sweeney promised two weeks ago, but outside it as well. Their numbers could turn up the heat on law enforcement and up the ante in a battle for media attention among groups wanting to get their messages Out.

Indeed, organized labor will be out in force and highly visible during the convention.

Day Higuchi, president of 43,000-member United Teachers Los Angeles, says his union will be hitting the streets for an Aug. 15 "pilgrimage" not only to fight for a new contract with the L.A. Unified School District, but to determine "the future of public education in our city."

Higuchi, a delegate to the convention along with four other UTLA members, is quick to dissociate the demonstration from any Seattle-like violence. "This is not the eco-terrorists," he emphasizes. "Ours is not a defiant message, it's a positive action. We're very proud of Al Gore."

Annelle Grajeda, general manager of Service Employees International Union Local 660, will also be leading members into the streets in an effort to draw attention to ongoing negotiations with Los Angeles County. "We suffered throughout the early '90s," she says of the 47,000-member union for county workers, "and with the economy going berserk, it's payback time."

Grajeda also claims fidelity to the Gore cause and, like Higuchi, says Local 660's march, set for Aug. 15 as well, is meant to be a positive one. She agreed it's a great opportunity to alert Democrats to the issues concerning working families, "but our real audience is the county Board of Supervisors," Grajeda said.

Also expected to participate in the UTLA march will be members of the 34,000-member SEIU Local 99, a union of school maintenance workers that is also at loggerheads with the LAUSD. Plans call for a stop-off to lend a hand to Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 11, perhaps the city's most militant union, with its demonstration at the New Otani Hotel before continuing on to the convention site. HERE Local 814 also plans to march.

The L.A. County Federation of Labor has endorsed the actions, says spokesman Neil Sacharow, who is quick to add that "the purpose is not to disrupt the Democratic convention." But the Aug. 15 actions will involve five unions, three of them large ones, marching downtown, which will undoubtedly disrupt traffic if not the convention.

Then there is the management-labor conflict at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Jonathan Tisch owns the hotel chain and is, according to HERE spokesman David Koff, an important contributor to the Gore cause.

HERE Local 814 is targeting the nonunion hotel during convention week. Lots of delegates are expected to stay at the hotel, and Local 814's plan is to picket in hopes that many of them won't cross the line, thereby creating a headache for the hotel.

Plenty of Democratic Party officials have weighed in on the matter already, signing an open letter to hotel management requesting that it remain neutral during the union's effort to organize hotel workers. They include Rep. Howard Berman, Rep. Henry Waxman, mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, and more than 30 other elected officials throughout the state. Sweeney himself was expected to join Jesse Jackson and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt at the hotel for an Aug. 13 rally.

"We support the Democrats and the candidate and will do what we can to elect him," Koff said. "But that doesn't mean that labor is blinded by the miracle of Al Gore."

Koff said the Democrats need not be embarrassed by the Loews imbroglio. "On the contrary, it provides an exceptional opportunity to associate themselves with the country's most labor-intense city," he said.

Local unions have made it a point to clarify that they're just getting the message out on workplace-specific conflicts. That is also the stated goal of the D2K Network and the Direct Action Network, two pro-labor groups that claim their protests will be peaceful and do not have "shutting down" the convention as an ultimate goal.

Even unions that won't be actively demonstrating at the convention are supporting the efforts of D2K and the Direct Action Network -- which means some members are likely to show up for their activities.

Protests by the two groups have been endorsed by the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union, the California Nurses Association, the Film and Television Action Committee (drawn from a plethora of Hollywood labor outfits), Laborers Local 724, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 1108, and Local 8-675 of the Paper Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, according to Jim Everett, who chairs D2K's labor committee.

Everett says "nobody can say" how many members from these groups will actually hit the streets this week.

The LAPD remains reserved. Asked what effect labor's presence might have on the protests, Lt. Horace Frank said, "Many groups will be demonstrating. As long as they have a permit and behave within the limits of the law, they are free to do so. It's a free country."