As workers across L.A. continue to strike, music uplifts the picket lines - Los Angeles Times
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As workers across L.A. continue to strike, music uplifts the picket lines

A band plays among a crowd of people in red shirts.
A band plays among dancing Unite Here Local 11 hotel workers at the InterContinental Hotel during a rally on Aug. 7 in downtown Los Angeles.
(Helen Li)
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Good morning. It’s Friday, Oct. 27. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

  • As workers across L.A. continue to strike, music uplifts the picket lines
  • Maine mass shooting leaves 18 dead
  • The best agave bars in L.A.
  • And here’s today’s e-newspaper

The sounds of L.A.’s strikes

Each day, Evan Shafran combs through KTLA, CBS, and FOX reports, trying to find news clips talking about the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Hold onto your resolve,” Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA president says in Shafran’s latest strike-themed mix. “This is our moment of truth.” The beats ramp up before the bass drops into another song.

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Shafran has become the de facto DJ of the Netflix picket lines. Every morning, he drives 15 miles from his apartment in Shadow Hills to Sunset Boulevard and sets up his subwoofer in front of the company’s headquarters.

Picket lines are best known for chants and slogans. But as workers across L.A. went on strike this summer and fall, music became a consistent presence and pillar of morale for the writers, hotel workers and actors pushing for higher wages and better working conditions. Through music, striking workers have found community and their own subcultures.

“Otherwise, I’d be sitting at my house just sad and depressed and feeling helpless,” Shafran told me. “The music has saved me and I know that it saved a lot of other people.”

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The DJ at Netflix

Shafran began DJing when he was growing up in Portland, Maine. A fan of artists like the Beastie Boys, the Roots, Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine, he credits rock and hip-hop as genres that have shaped his tastes in music. But more importantly, it’s hip-hop’s roots as a political movement that inspire his current work on the picket lines.

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“We’re dancing out there together, we’re angry,” Shafran said. A SAG-AFTRA member since 2010, he has struggled to make ends meet with acting roles.

The SAG-AFTRA actors who are still seeking a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, picket each day from 9 a.m. to noon. Shafran usually plays songs like Rihanna’s “B— Better Have My Money” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going on,” along with his original DJ mixes. Last week, he commemorated the 99th day of the SAG strike with a mix he calls “99 Problems But Solidarity Ain’t One,” blending in Drescher’s speeches with news clips of actors talking about their experiences.

Samantha Silver, a focus puller based in New York City and a member of Local 600, has shared Shafran’s SoundCloud mixes to her friends across unions.

“At this point, people across the guilds are limping along financially,” Silver said. “It’s nice to come and see people chant or dance and keep moving, even if it’s just a circle around the block.”

A man in a straw hat looks on as another man plays a guitar at a microphone.
Stephen Harrod, left, watches a music showcase he organized for picketing Hollywood workers at Amazon Studios in Culver City in September.
(Helen Li)

Solidarity showcases at Amazon

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Before the strikes, Stephen Harrod was a boom microphone operator on film production crews. These days, he plays a guitar at the Amazon Studios picket line in Culver City. He wanted to channel his skill sets into the protest and organized an open-mic and songwriter showcase in September, days before the Writers Guild of America struck a deal with studios.

“Music shines in those moments of doubt, when you need to feel motivated and when you need to put one foot in front of the other,” Harrod told me. “These people have a lot going on. I kind of think of us as almost musical wallpapers. I want to do something that I feel like I would appreciate if I were out there.”

Local musicians added a bit of extra color for that morning’s extra long picket line, playing original songs or covers underneath a white tent. Bob Dylan protest classics made an appearance.

“We’re drawing on our own personal experiences, to write and share feelings and emotions. And that’s what the writers do,” he said.

Zapateado at hotel rallies

Meanwhile, for striking hotel workers, the sounds of pots and pans as well as Sousaphones have become recognizable at rallies and pickets.

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“Que queremos? Contracto! Cuando? Ahora!” the striking hotel workers in bright red Unite 11 shirts yelled in a call and response at a downtown Los Angeles rally in August. As the rally ended, workers paired up for the Zapateado, a traditional Mexican dance, to the music of the assembled live band.

The majority of the hotel workers who are striking identify as Latina women. From cumbia, to salsa, to banda and zapateado, the workers have brought music and dances from their cultures.

Maria Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Unite Here Local 11 union for the hotel workers, says that the union hired a band for marches to boost morale.

“They wanted music and they wanted to celebrate the fact that they are fighting for themselves, fighting for their families,” she told me. “It’s just been an opportunity in a way for our members to find joy in the struggle, find joy in the fight, and to keep going.”

Today’s top stories

Officers gather around a Portland Police Department vehicle.
Law enforcement officials load into a tactical vehicle at Lisbon High School in Lisbon Falls, Maine, early Thursday as a manhunt resumes for the gunman in the previous night’s mass shooting.
(Jessica Rinaldi / Boston Globe / Getty Images)

Labor news in California

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Commentary and opinions

Today’s great reads

Two men stay behind to bid farewell to their slain friend in Tulkarem, occupied West Bank.
After the funeral of their slain friend, Nasser Abdalall, 14, center, and Mohamad Emran, 13, center right, stay behind to bid farewell to Ali Khazneh, 15, at his funeral in Tulkarem, occupied West Bank. Ali was shot by Israeli forces during an assault on the nearby Nour Shams refugee camp which left at least 13 Palestinians killed.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

A stone, a bullet, a burial. A Palestinian boy’s death in the West Bank signals wider unrest. Ali Khazneh’s death was another in the worst surge of violence to have swept the West Bank in some 15 years. In the weeks since Oct. 7, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas killed more than 1,400 Israelis, Israel has focused on Gaza, where it is widely expected to launch a ground invasion.

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For your downtime

Two women pose for a portrait inside Ikea
(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)

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And finally ... a great photo

Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they’re important to you.

A pond and grasslands with a forest and mountains in the background
A view of Mt. Shasta from Loch Jones’ back deck in Leaf, Calif.
(Loch Jones)

Today’s great photo is from Loch Jones of Macdoel: a view of Mt. Shasta. Loch writes:

I lived in L.A. for 40+ years and finally was able to return to the family ranch [in Leaf, Calif.] where we built the first house ever on this property (just under 1k acres). In L.A., there were 2.5 million people within 20 minutes of my home. Within that same distance here, there are approximately 14. Both areas are so different and within California. At night, we can’t see another man-made light and we can see for miles.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

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Helen Li, reporting fellow
Elvia Limón, multiplatform editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Laura Blasey, assistant editor

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