Chapo Trap House - Will Interviews Hugo Soto-Martinez, Candidate for L.A. City Council

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

Will talks to Hugo Soto-Martinez, who is running for City Council in LA’s 13th district. They discuss Hugo’s personal history, housing justice, and organizing to build political power. Donate to Hugo’s campaign through our custom link: bit.ly/hugochapo Follow Hugo on social media at @hugoforcd13

Okay. Hello, listeners. It's me, Will Meneker. If you've been listening to this show for a while now, you will know that we are one for one on our LA City Council guests joining the Los Angeles City Council. And it is my distinct pleasure to announce that we are doubling down on this strategy. And to welcome to the show candidate for LA Los Angeles City Council District 13, it is Hugo Soto Martinez. Hugo, thank you so much for being with me. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm very happy to be here. Hugo, I want to talk a little bit about your campaign. But before we get into that, I was just wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the Los Angeles that you grew up

in and what led you into politics? Yeah, sure. So I was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. My parents were immigrants. When they came to this country, they became street vendors. So they sold fruit in Los Angeles all over the city. And when I was 16 years old, I got hired at a non-union hotel and worked there through college. And right as I was going to graduate, there was an organizing drive to bring the union in. And it was the most transformational experience I ever had as a person of color in the city, because we literally took power away from the company. And in the process, won an incredible union contract. It was really transformative. We

took control of our own shop, our own workplace. And it's something that I've wanted to do for a very long time. And so now, 15 years later, here I am, the city has changed a lot. We see grassroots candidates fighting and winning, such as Nithya Raman. And so we want to continue on that amazing work that's been at the grassroots level. And I think we're going to win another seat here for the people in the city. Yeah, it says here, I mean, you spent the last, what, 15 years with Unite here, local 11. What did you learn in your experience of organizing that made you want to take the next step into a different arena?

I always say that there's a mantra that one of my mentors taught me. He said, what you win depends on the power that you build. And so I think that in the city of Los Angeles, we see so much activity happening across the city, where I think we've built enough power where we can start taking, you know, city council seats. And so I look at my district that has a ton of DSA members, a lot of people who are active in the community. You know, I come from labor. And so, so you know what, I think we can bring all these coalitions together and take that seat for the people. So that's a lesson that I learned as an organizer. When workers come together, you know, they beat a corporation. And so it depends on

the power that you build. You build enough power, you can take as much as you want. You got to keep building that power. How do you take the lessons that you've learned organizing workers and organizing the workplace and apply it to, I don't know, attending to, I don't know, I don't know, organize voters or organize a campaign or just get people, get voters in LA's 13th district, a part of this campaign? Well, you know, one of the biggest things that I learned as an organizer is that it's never about the individual, that it's always about the collective and the involvement of

that collective to a greater goal. And so, you know, one of the things that we're talking a lot about in this district is how we're going to take that organizer's approach to engaging voters, but involving them in larger policy fights, you know, through that process of fighting and collective struggle, they're going to learn, they're going to grow, they're going to get trained. And we want them to be part of this, this democratic process, just the way we're involved in the union. It's just people doing work and going out there and talking to people and mobilizing people. And so I think that's the vision we're really trying to put out for people.

All right, you've been quoted as saying the union is a vehicle for permanent struggle. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so like, you know, when we want, when I, when me and my coworkers won the union, one thing that I didn't realize at the time is that it was going to allow us to continuously grow, continuously fight the boss and just make improvements over time. Right. And so give you an example. It's been a union hour for 15 years. When the pandemic hit, our workers were laid off, many, you know, high percentages of people were laid off, but because they had a union, because we had a union, it allowed us to fight that corporation in the moment

of that need during the height of the pandemic. And so as a result of it, they were able to negotiate, you know, to have family health, to maintain their family health insurance through the period of the pandemic. I don't think a single worker lost their health care during that time. And so there's a sense of permanency when you have a union, it's like allows you to continue to fight until that place is no longer there. And so we have long history of these workplaces having 40, 50 years and, you know, workers come and go, but the struggle of the working class continues because you have a union within that property. I mean, you mentioned hotel workers during COVID. Could you talk a little bit about like

the unique situation that COVID presented as it related to hotel employees, but also some of the some of the interesting plans that are regarding the use of hotels for housing at a time when most hotel rooms are empty. So the pandemic hit our industry the hardest without a doubt. You know, you think about who was affected tourism, large conventions, large sporting events, those are our members. And so during the height of the pandemic, we had 95% unemployment. Massive massive unemployment. And so it was incredibly devastating. You know, we did a lot of things to push back and we do as best as we can. You know, many of them have returned and we passed laws in

the city and we did a ton of ton of work for protection. But you know, but during this time, you know, it's it's like the hotels were empty, very completely empty. Some some even closed, they were just completely closed. And so, you know, during the time there was a movement to commandeer the hotels, because why would you have an empty bunch of empty rooms right when we have a ton of unhoused in the streets. And so, you know, that's something we're talking a lot about even now, because even though the the places aren't shut down, you know, they continue to be at, you know, half occupancy or very low occupancy and there's still some hotels that are closed. So they could certainly be used right now to protect

the most vulnerable. This is referring to Project Home Key, right? Yeah. This is about like LA is getting about a billion dollars in state money to purchase unwanted hotels and apartment and office buildings to convert them into housing. And like, what's the status of Project Home Key right now? Yeah, so so there was Home Key and then there was Room Key. Room Key was the temporary using of the hotels and Home Key is all this money that, you know, they want to use to buy, you

know, motels or hotels. You know, I don't I don't think there's been many purchases of this. And so I don't know, I haven't heard of a single hotel in at least that I'm aware of, you know, that has been bought and converted over to any kind of housing for that house. But like, I mean, this is in the context of, I believe, something like $2 billion in subsidies to build hotels for things like the, you know, their Olympics bid and tourism and things like things like that at a time when there's something like a 500,000 like housing unit deficit in Los Angeles. I mean, this is a matter of using public money to create private hotels that are now going unused when there is a homelessness crisis and a housing crisis

in Los Angeles. Yeah, no, I, the idea is great. I just don't think that the, I don't think there's the political will, right? It's like, when we're doing Project Room Key, and it was to temporarily use the the hotels to house people, literally, they were like at 10% or close. In my opinion, it was like foolish to walk away from that money because they were going to pay, you know, like as if a tourist was there, that's the they were going to pay that money. They didn't do it. And I think it was just a question of, of question, the way people view the way owners view their private property. It's like, this is my property. I'm going to do what

I want with it, right? If they never view it as something that they could be good for the public, let alone commandeering, I think that's even you're, you're going bridge way too far, right? Because now you're going to have them screaming about, you know, private property rights and things like that. But, you know, this is a moment where we have to view, you know, we have to view this as it relates to power, right? Like, do does the council, you know, going to use their power, despite the interest of the private private enterprise, right? For the public good. And I still to this day, I think that the answer is no, I think they're just they're just not going to do it. They're going to they're

going to listen to big business. To the question of building power, I want to go back to talk about Unite here a little bit. Could you describe what Unite here's rank and file strategy is compared to other unions, for instance? Yeah, sure. I love our union. You know, if one thing that's very different about Unite here, local 11, and right, you might hear it internationally, right? Because there's different different cities. Is that if you if you walk into a staff meeting, a Unite here staff meeting in any city, you're going to walk in that room, and you're going to see

organizers who used to be part of the industry. Just in the just in the team that I'm in, it is ex housekeepers, it is at people who used to be cooks, people who used to be front desk agents. That is who is part of the of who organized who organizes full time is paid to organize the workers. And so our strategy of the rank and file is constantly looking for new leaders, training them, developing them and pushing them along a path where they can continue to grow and be and be stronger and be bigger leaders. And so I don't think there's a lot of unions out there that that think that way. And so, you know, one of one of the beautiful anecdotes is, you know, many years ago, we had like sort of this crisis

in the union that we had to send out all these organizers all over the all over the country. Like, I think we must have sent like 15 to 20 organizers just from local level. But because we had so many trained leaders working, you know, in the rank and file, that we were able to pull out those 15 and those 15 filled up all the spots of the people that had gone. And I know that there are very, very few unions that say they can say they have that kind of a deep bench, right, we can just pull out people who are ready to fight and ready ready trained and ready to go. So we're always doing that identifying, developing and training people like at all levels, no matter where their leadership is at.

So like when you're engaging in these organizing efforts, sometimes at places where, you know, you don't want to let management know it's sort of like you're trying to keep it under wraps for a little bit, you go to these job sites. I mean, like, what do you look for in a potential leader? Or like so someone who can do that do this work of organizing? Like, I mean, what are you looking for? And like, and also like, what are you hearing from these people that like you're trying to respond to? Yeah, so one of the, you know, organizing an onion in workplace, I think having the definitions of what is a leader is important. Right? People sort of sometimes look for the most outspoken

or the most bunches, right? Not not the way you should view a leader. A leader is is it has a very simple definition. Can this person move other people into action? That is the only definition of a leader. Can this person move another person into action? Because a leader is someone that can mobilize, that can influence, that can maintain the solidarity. And so if that person can move another person into action, regardless of their personality or shy or more outspoken, if they can move them into action, they are a leader in a person absolutely has to be recruited onto the committee to be part of the fight. And so we had just always recruiting leaders, always recruiting people that can move other people into action.

And I'm just going to talk a little bit about the importance of like what what what a committee means for for Unite here, other union organizing efforts like like what what is a committee and why is it important for a union effort? The committee and building the committee and developing and training the committee is is the most essential thing in the kind of organizing that I've that I have done. You know, when you go to these workplaces, you know, I don't know any of the workers, I just know there's 150 workers there. But you build intimate relationships, you get to know a lot of people. But as you do it, you're always looking for people who have that leadership, right? Can they move other people into action? And it's

always it always breaks down to like one for every 10 people. It's just kind of the ratio of the world is kind of where it works, right? And so you're looking for that one leader for every 10 people. And what you do is you get all these leaders together, you recruit all of them. And then that becomes sort of the the engine of the organizing drive. It is those leaders. So that one person is responsible for 10. Correct. And then you're going to bring in those one you bring in 10 people and then what you're really bringing in is 100. Correct. That's right. That's that's basically it, right? And so then that that committee. Now, sometimes that committee can be from different departments and, you know, they might

not know each other, but you got to bring that committee together and build that community, build that cohesiveness of that of that core. And if you can do that and you can build that, you're unstoppable. It doesn't matter what the companies can do. If you have the people who move other people into action, you're going to win every single time. So like, I don't think I'm curious about is like, okay, so you've been across the table at these, at these, you know, negotiation sessions. I mean, like, who comes into these negotiations and you're sitting across from the table? What's that like? What does that let that give and take process like? And like, do you see any similarities between that experience

and that of running for office or politics? Ah, yeah. So being, being in that room is, I mean, I'll tell you, like my first experience with it was it really revealed who has power in the corporation because, you know, you're used to seeing your general manager, putting beverage director, whatever. And then, you know, you, you see them and like, oh, that's a very powerful person. But what you realize is that when it's time to bargain and negotiate, they actually don't have that much power. They're just kind of like tools of the corporation. And so they bring in like some, you know, big finance guy, or it's usually a guy, you know, just, just kind of corporate world always

usually white men, you know, they bring in their lawyer and you see like who really, who really moves things for the corporation. And so you get to see behind the curtain, right, who's really pulling the string. To me, it was incredibly fascinating to see it for the first time, just made revealed, like, you know, how the power works in the corporation. And I think it's very similar, you know, it's like, the comment I'm running against, you know, I just see him as a symbol of somebody else, right. It's like, I know that behind him is someone who, who, who he listens to, right. And that's big corporations, it's big real estate developers, right. So I know it. So I think it's the same thing. It's

like, it's like, we're going to grab our community, our people, and we're going to bring it up, you know, the same way we did in bargaining. There's an interesting story that I have, but I don't know if I have time to share it. No, please go for it. Yeah. So one time, for example, we were, we were in bargaining. We're literally, literally in bargaining, we're getting close to reaching an agreement, right? It's like, you're moving, you're moving, you're moving. And there was one issue that the company didn't want to give up on. And so we told the workers, he said, you know, they're not giving it up,

you got to come down right now. And so the banquet servers in the middle of like service, right, they're like serving their guests, all decide to come down. The room was a smaller negotiating room. And so they all went in, they surrounded the company, like they're literally like sitting behind them cross, they had their arms crossed or like staring at them. And you could feel like just the company saying like, oh, shit, like we, we have lost control of the banquet staff, right? Like in this room, they're not serving. And the negotiator, our negotiator was like, well, as you can see, you know, they're serious, you know, they're serious. And in that moment, they, they gave up, they gave up what we wanted.

We got what we wanted at that moment. So I mean, going from the bargaining table to like the larger table of LA's 13th district, which I believe includes what Silverlake, Echo Park, East Hollywood, a few other, a few other neighborhoods, like about how many people are in LA's 13th district? Oh, LA's district has about over 200,000 people. So that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people that are organized. So like just, just coming to that table, I mean, like what, what is your vision? What are you, what are you hoping to like, like, like activate the, the passion or beliefs or imagination of voters

in the 13th district? You know, this is a, this is a beautiful district for many reasons. This district voted overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders, over 60% voted for Bernie. And if you include Warren on top of that, it was like over 70%. It's incredibly diverse. There's a little Thai town, little Armenia, sort of a large Central American community, which is a lot of different countries, Filipinos. And so, you know, when I see this district, I see a shop, right? I see, I see a hotel, these hotels are also segregated by race and class and positions, right? In terms of the jobs people do at a big hotel?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like the room attendance tend to be Latinas from the house, usually more white males are very dominated in one. I mean, it's completely segregated by race, gender and class. But, you know, we're able to bring people together. And so, you know, that's been, I've been in for 15 years. And so when I see this district, I see, you know, I see DSA, which is a very active organization. I'm very proud to say I'm a member for many years. We have the most members in this district. And so we have a lot of very committed socialists that are ready to do the work on the ground. And so, we're going to do it the same way. We're going to do, when we do our political campaign,

we're going to do a lot of organizing trainings. We're going to teach organizing skills and overlay it with your traditional door knocking operation in this, in any political campaign. Right. So we're going to bring these skills in and try to do the same thing. Identify, recruit and train. And just keep doing that over and over and over. And I think over the period of the campaign, which is going to be about a year, we're going to recruit a lot of leaders, a lot of people who want to do stuff. And then we're going to, we're going to unleash it on the, on the city. All right. Well, listeners to the show might remember from our, the, the Nithya interviews that I did, that the LA city council is somewhat

unique in the terms of the power that it wields versus the city councils of every other city in America. There's only 13 members of the city council. They represent about four million people. And Los Angeles, the mayor is not in control of the budget. It's the city council. Right. That's right. That's right. We have what we call the weak mayor system. Yeah. The weak mayoralty system, which means getting a Hugo or a Nithya on the city council is a big win. So like a Nithya aside in any like, you know, emergent sort of like left wing or socialist block on the city council, let's say Hugo is, becomes a city councilman Hugo. What do you like, what, what is your vision? Like, what is your agenda? Like what do you,

what are the things that you want to get done for the LA's 13th district and the city at large? Look, so the one of the powers of the council of the council person, right, is that they control what gets built, they control policing strategy, they control, you know, how much affordable housing, how we deal with unhoused, we do a ton of stuff. They have a huge office. And so I think that when we get into office, we're going to completely restructure how we, how we use our resources in the office. You know, we're going to, we're going to train, we're going to get a lot of folks who are field deputies, we're going to be going into the streets, gauging people. And I think a policy around housing is we're

going to, we're going to demand more of developers, right? Right now they do like 9%, 10% affordable housing, we're going to demand 30% at a minimum. We're going to use our also, I mean, it's also depends on what the definition of affordable housing is. I mean, I know here in New York, like that's always the trick is that for any like, you know, if you want to build the Barclay Center, no, you have to build X amount of affordable housing units alongside with it. But then the affordable housing is determined by the median income of the zip code that it's in, which is like 70 or 80 grand a year, which is not really affordable in the sense that people imagine when they think of affordable housing in a city like Los Angeles or New

York. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that I think you're right. I think the definitions of affordable are completely wrong. But the conversations that we're going to have is not just about affordable housing and like the traditional sense, but how we create social housing, right? Public housing. The city hasn't created a single unit of public housing since I think 1955. It's an absolute disgrace. And so we have to we have to talk about how housing is a human right. It's not simply about just being affordable, but that this should not be something that is that is commodified, something that is profited up, right? And

I think that, you know, when you think about people talk about healthcare these days, they are sort of starting to understand that we shouldn't be profiting off of someone's well being. Well, that same thing is about people's housing. Like that is not something that should be viewed as a profit. And so we're going to have those really serious conversations and try to get to the root of like social inequity in this district. Yeah, I mean, like when you talk about like decommodifying housing or removing healthcare from like the marketplace, I mean, what you're really talking about is like, when market forces are like management of things, something like housing or healthcare is turned over

to market forces, well, then the market will just be like whatever the market will bear is what you will pay for it. And like that becomes more of a hostage situation because it's like, what amount of money would you pay to continue breathing or to have a roof over your head? And the answer is almost anything. And when people are in a situation like that, then like, they're squeezed in every other aspect of their life. And there's certainly it's not a situation in which like, you know, neighborhoods, communities, people of any kind can really like, unless you're really affluent or wealthy, can thrive or have a decent life at all. Yeah, no, absolutely. The market has failed

working people. Like I see it every single day, I work with working people every single day, you know, before they went to union. I am there in their homes, talking to them, their husbands or kids. I have seen the working class of the city and how they are being punished for being poor. And so we absolutely have to do something that turns that system upside down. Because it is failing most people in the city right now. Could you talk briefly about your opponent? Who is he and like, what is their vision for Los Angeles versus yours? And like, you know, when you talk about like, you know, decommodifying housing in any American city, what you're talking about is taking on the real estate

developers and the real estate lobby, which is a big, I mean, like, let's be honest, like they control most of the city politics in American cities. So like, who's your opponent and like, how does your vision of Los Angeles differ from theirs? Mitchell Farrell is someone who has been in office, worked in the city for over 20 years, or two or two or will be 20 years. And he's been in office for 10. He is completely backed by real estate interests, developer interests, you know, folks who the tech, the gig companies, right, those folks that brought us Prop 22 here in California. He is absolutely in bed with Airbnb that is causing massive displacement in the city. And I think he's very proud of

that. I think he, well, you know, he's the criminalization of the unhoused in Echo Park Lake. I mean, wasn't he involved with the Echo Park, like the clearing out of the homeless from Echo Park and putting a fence around the whole thing? Absolutely. I mean, Echo Park was a complete disaster leading up while it happened and afterwards. This is, yeah, failed to bring people together on this issue and took an extremely punitive approach and kicked everybody out, put a fence, got rid of the street vendors, paid the LAPD over, I think close to $2 million in overtime. And through the entire process, only four people were housed. That's it, four people in permanent supportive, in permanent

supportive housing. And so it was a complete failure, you know, from the beginning to the end. And so we're going to take the opposite approach that. You bring up street vendors, and I know we started out this interview by saying that your parents were street vendors in Los Angeles, but LA has been cracking down on street vendors overall, right? You know, it is, I mean, I mean, there's, I have a lot to say about this because, you know, I remember the fight leading up to the ordinance. Nobody wanted to do anything for the street vendors. And then all of a sudden, Trump got elected. And all of a sudden, everybody

became a friend of the street vendors, because, you know, if you recall, any criminal, any criminal charge could have led to deportation. You could get deported. And so all of a sudden, everyone's like, Oh my God, we have to criminalize street vending. You know, we can't allow this to happen. And then Trump's gone and they're back to the same policies. You know, they face constant harassment by the police. They get ticketed every single day. And because it's just this attitude that like, like street vendors are almost akin to being

homeless, like to see as someone selling, you know, mangoes in your neighborhood is the same thing as seeing like, like a homeless encampment or something like that. Yeah, it's, it's, I think it's, it's part of a, it's part of a larger, you know, larger thing, a larger thing that's happening in, especially in this district of pushing working class people of color out, right? We are banishing them from where they can live. We're banishing from where they can sit, sleep or lie. And we're banishing them from where they can sell to provide for their families. Like it's just a complete, you know, mechanism of banishing working class people of color. And it's truly, truly despicable. And also a personal one

for me, because my parents were street vendors growing up. Well, also, I mean, it's just like, if you think about like the city of Los Angeles or New York or most other major American cities, when you talk about like the things that make up that city or the things that people like about it, or have a kind of global influence, a lot of it comes from a food culture that is created by, you know, trucks, street vendors, like that. And like to get rid of it in favor of what I'm not exactly sure, I don't know, like Starbucks, probably, would seem to be doing sort of incalculable damage to the image of the city of Los Angeles, even if you care about things like tourism and like growing

the economy. I mean, I mean, talk about, I mean, look, I'm a foodie, I'm a self-proclaimed foodie. And, you know, one of my favorite activities is just like going out and patronizing, you know, small family owned businesses and the culture and the food that they bring. And it is, you know, it's that's another sort of layer to it, right? It's like it's attacking a culture. And that's the Latin American culture, right? You go to Mexico, you go to, street vendor is like a part of our life. That's just how it is. And it's a culture that we've brought

here in the city. And I think it's made it a better city, a more beautiful city. And all those dishes, all that food is going to end up in a trendy restaurant, like $30 plate eventually, right? And, you know, like, nothing wrong with that. I mean, like, if you can, someone will pay for it, go for it. But like, without that, like, you're not going to have the cool new next thing that everyone wants to eat. Yeah, I know. I have a friend who was used to eating $8 tacos on the West side, because you want to get them at the restaurant. So I was like, bro, you're missing out. All right. Well, Hugo, we got to go now. But just like just just just for our listeners

here, when is the election? And if they'd like to help out in any way, if they're in LA or the rest of the country, what should they do? Yeah. So the election is, no, thank you very much for saying that the election is June 7 of next year. That's the primary. And then, and then we hope we'll be in the top two. And then it'll be in November of 2022. Look, I think that your audience is a national audience. But what happens in Los Angeles will be transported good or bad to the rest of the country. You know, that's just kind of kind of how it goes, right? If you've heard of the SWAT team, well, that started in Los Angeles, transported to the rest of the country. And so we're fighting,

as I mentioned, a deeply corporate deeply entrenched in the corporate and the corporate machine. And so we're going to win by having folks just be a part of volunteering, donating. Donating is very important because, you know, Mitch might have organized money, but we have organized people. And I know that that will always win. And so folks can go to our website. It's a Google 2022.com. That's where folks can donate. And, you know, check out our Twitter, our Instagram. We have actually created a special donation link. Oh, really? Choppa listeners, Hugo Choppo, the link will be in the episode description when this comes

out. So, and yeah, like if you're talking about a district where we're close to 70% of the people voted for Bernie Sanders, then you know the power of individual small donations. As for, you know, not just competing with, but vastly outstripping the combined forces of the real estate lobby and, you know, Prop 22 tech people. Absolutely. If everyone listening to this gave $5, it would go an incredibly long way in putting a socialist in the office and bringing community power to the city. So yeah, I appreciate it. Hugo Martinez Soto, thank you so much for your time. Best of luck in the primary. We will

be following you every step of the way. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. Hopefully come on next time, another time. Well, next time I'm in LA, I'll be sure to drop you online. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Cheers. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.