history

Formerly known as the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office,  LELO was founded in Seattle, Washington in 1973 when Black workers from the United Construction Workers Association, Asian workers from the Alaska Cannery Workers Association and Latino workers from the Northwest Chapter of the United Farmworkers of America came together to work for racial and economic justice.

LELO was founded to address the following problems:

1    That working class people of color faced intense discrimination in the workplace;                         2    Were relegated to the lowest wage jobs in every industry;                                                        3    Had little or no voice in their own trade unions.

Initially, LELO used class action lawsuits combined with direct action as a means to empower workers of color and further support the grassroots organizing of the three founding groups. LELO’s first lawsuits were launched on behalf of Black construction workers, led by Tyree Scott. Through LELO’s legal action and grassroots organizing, the number of Black workers in the Seattle construction trades rose from less than 10 in 1970 to more than 600 in 1979.

With money raised through their initial lawsuits, LELO was able to launch successful suits on behalf of Asian and Alaska Native cannery workers and then later, on behalf of farmworkers and their right to organize.  In Venegas v. UFWA LELO successfully fought an injunction that a ranch owner had obtained to deny farmworker organizers the right to enter migrant camps to meet with workers. This case set an important national precedent in securing access of union organizers to migrant farmworkers.

In conjunction with our litigation work, LELO organized street protests and direct actions led by workers of color to bring attention and awareness to their struggle for equal treatment, equal opportunity, fair wages, and decent working conditions.

LELO’s work in the 1980’s was framed by the assassinations of two of its founding board members, cannery union organizers Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes. These LELO leaders were murdered in 1981 by agents of former President of the Phillipines Ferdinand Marcos. Evidence showed that they were assassinated in retaliation for their successful work to link workers’ struggles in the U.S to workers’ struggles abroad. (In 1980 Silme and Gene had succeeded in getting the International Longshoremen Workers Union – their union – to pass a resolution at their national conference condemning the repression of workers and trade unions in the Philippines.)

LELO leaders responded to this tragedy with a 10-year organizing effort to call national attention to a lawsuit brought by the families of Silme and Gene against the estate of Ferdinand Marcos. In 1991 the families were awarded $15 million in a precedent setting verdict that represented the first time a foreign government allied with the U.S. government was held accountable to U.S. citizens for assassinations on U.S. soil.

Silme and Gene, as well as other founders and leaders within LELO, recognized early on that workers need to unite across race and national boundaries to be successful in their struggle for justice.

The 1980s also saw the Republican administrations of Reagan and Bush stacking the courts with conservative justices who repeatedly denied all working people – but particularly workers of color – basic rights. It became clear to LELO that legal strategies were no longer a viable way to win fairness and justice for workers of color.

LELO was restructured to operate as a people-of-color led, grassroots workers’ rights organization that combines community organizing, popular political education, and international networking to empower workers of color and women workers to have a voice and speak for themselves.  Recently, LELO changed its acronym to Legacy of Equality, Leadership and Organizing to reflect the work we do to strive to empower workers of color and women workers to assert our own rights, improve our own working conditions and gain a voice in our workplaces, trade unions and communities – both within the U.S. and across the globe.