L.A. Janitors Join National Movement to Oppose Alabama's HB 56

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March 8th became a holiday for Los Angeles activists this year.

Currently, L.A. janitors are renegotiating contracts with their employers. It's also International Women's Day and the anniversary of a Civil Rights march in Alabama.

"It's very, very, very important, this march right now. There are like 20 buses bringing in people," union member Rosa Welson said.

On the surface, today's event brought janitors in United Service Workers West, a division of the Service Employees International Union, to a union rally.

Today is also International Women's Day. And Nathalie Contreras, an SEIU organizer, says that's not a coincidence.

"It's a day of commemoration, it's a day of remembering all the struggles for women, whether it's the Triangle Fire of the women who, fighting for their union, were burned alive trying to fight for their union, or it's immigrant workers here in L.A. who organized 20 years ago for their union. We're all struggling together for a better future."

But today is the anniversary of a 1965 Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. And last year, Alabama passed a law restricting the civil rights of illegal immigrants - it makes all their contracts invalid and allows public schools to check the citizenship of enrolling students.

Federal courts have blocked some provisions of that law in Alabama, but most of it was upheld by a U.S. district judge in September. The Eleventh Circuit will hear an appeal from opponents this summer.

SEIU will continue to vocalize its opposition, along with many other labor and religious groups across the country who held solidarity events today.

"For the janitors, it's a struggle about working people. An attack on some working people is on all working people. Today the janitors are standing in solidarity."

The janitors hope to have a contract settled by the end of next month.