Los Angeles labor leader resigns after racist meeting with councilmembers leaked

Los Angeles Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera resigned Monday over his participation in a meeting last year where city councilmembers used crude and racist language to describe their political opponents and constituents.

In the leaked October 2021 meeting audio obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez said Mike Bonin, a white councilman, treats his young Black son as though he were a fashionable “accessory,” like a handbag.

Martinez has since stepped down as the council's president although it is not clear whether she will resign from her city council seat.

City councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Léon were also present with Martinez and Herrera in the meeting, where they vented their frustrations about redistricting and strategized about how to consolidate political power.

At one point in the recording, Martinez calls Bonin “a little bitch” and referred to his son as “Parece changuito,” or “like a monkey.”

De Léon repeatedly referred to Bonin as the city council’s “fourth Black member” and complained, “Mike Bonin won't f---ing ever say peep about Latinos. He'll never say a f---ing word about us.”

He also agreed with Martinez’s “accessory” comment, comparing Bonin's handling of his son at the recent MLK Parade to "when Nury brings her Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag."

“Su negrito, like on the side,” Martinez concurred, using a sometimes-demeaning Spanish term for a Black person.

The meeting’s participants have been condemned from all sides with many calling for their resignation.  

“We love our son, a beautiful, joyful child, and our family is hurting today,” said Bonin, in a joint statement on Twitter with his husband, Sean Arian. “No child should ever be subjected to such racist, mean and dehumanizing comments, especially from a public official.”

On Tuesday, the remaining leadership of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor called upon the three city council members involved to resign their seats.

“Racism in any form has no place in the House of Labor. It is unconscionable that those elected to fight for our communities of color would engage in repulsive and vile anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Asian and anti-Oaxacan remarks that pit our working communities against each other. These sentiments will not be tolerated by our organization or those who we represent,” the chair of the federation’s executive board Thom Davis, said in a statement.