At one time, every major American newspaper had a regular labor beat, but the rise of corporate-owned media and the troubled state of American unions have made labor reporters all but extinct. Steven Greenhouse at The New York Times is a notable exception among the corporate press, but for the most part “there are no labor reporters,” said Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation.
And then there’s David Bacon, a freelancing photojournalist who “may be unique for his focus on the lives of immigrant workers and their impact on the U.S. economy.”
“I can’t think of any other reporter who has a broader understanding of labor issues as they relate to immigrants,” vanden Heuvel said. “He has driven the discussion on how immigration fits into the broader labor picture in this country.”
Bacon reports and writes on labor issues and immigrants’ stories with the same dedication that has made him a force in the labor movement for more than 40 years. He spent more than half of his career working as a union organizer and immigrants’ rights advocate, then switched 18 years ago to writing and photographing the people he’d been organizing, maintaining a prodigious output of photographs, books and freelance articles.
He also hosted a radio show on KPFA-FM in Berkeley for 17 years—until he pulled the plug last year, when Pacifica Foundation canceled the station’s popular Morning Show and fired the program’s hosts and production staff, violating the station’s union contract with CWA Local 9415. Bacon, a longtime CWA member, vowed in an open letter to keep the labor show off the air until the ongoing dispute is resolved in a fair way.
“The union has asked me not to come in to do the labor show while the dispute is going on,” Bacon wrote. “Their request is like a picket line protesting the violation and in solidarity, I won’t cross it.”
Yet despite the loss of his show and the continued shrinkage of American newspapers, Bacon is busier than ever. He has written three books on globalization and its effect on migrant workers. He speaks regularly about immigration trends and is a regular contributor to The Nation, The American Prospect, Truthout.org and the San Francisco Chronicle. His photo essays have been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Mexico. And for the past eight years he has worked on his opus, “Living Under the Trees,” a photo and oral history of migratory workers from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Fourteen-hour workdays—without overtime—are not unusual. “That’s the curse of being a freelancer,” he said. “You tend to work all the time because you have the pressure of having to pay your bills.”
On a recent afternoon, Bacon ran up the stairs to his small photography studio in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. Journalism and labor awards hang on the wall, along with his black and white photos that depict the working lives and conflicts of migrant workers. There is a photo of picketing carpenters during a 1993 strike in Los Angeles, garment workers protesting unpaid wages in San Francisco, migrant farm laborers sleeping in cardboard tents in strawberry fields near Salinas.
Contrary to the stereotypical image of a firebrand labor advocate, Bacon is soft-spoken. He listens attentively, and his pale blue eyes tend to fix with interest on the person with whom he’s speaking. He is modest about his work and seems more comfortable behind a camera or a notepad. He said being interviewed puts him ill at ease.
Modesty aside, Bacon has been called the Renaissance man of the labor movement because of his versatility as an organizer, rights advocate, writer, speaker, photographer and broadcaster. “My life doesn’t have a lot of neat borders. Things get mushed up,” he said. “I think it would be boring otherwise.”
But just below Bacon’s mild manner is a passionate and dedicated labor advocate, said Oakland’s vice mayor, Ignacio de la Fuente, a longtime labor activist and vice president of the Glass, Molders and Pottery Workers International Union.
“Make no mistake about it, my friend,” he said. “David and I worked together in some real battles . . . in the good ol’ days, when you would get beat up and bloody.” De la Fuente said he and Bacon were assaulted in the early 1980s during an organizing effort at New Life Bakery in Hayward. During a four-month strike at Basic Tool & Supply in Oakland, Bacon was arrested off a picket line 15 times.
De la Fuente added that Bacon’s journalism is just as effective as his front-line organizing efforts. “You can write with a soul, or you can just write,” he said, “David writes with a soul.”
During his career, Bacon has spent a great deal of time on the road. In recent years he has tried to stay closer to home in order to spend time with his three daughters and his wife, Lillian Galledo, who is a community activist and executive director of Filipino Advocates for Justice. “I do all the cooking at home,” Bacon said. “I get complaints because dinner can be late sometimes when I’m on deadline . . . but I do my best.”
Bacon’s social consciousness was forged by his parents, who were both union activists, and by the political upheaval of the 1960s. He was a Berkeley High School student when he first volunteered for KPFA in 1964. One of the 16-year-old’s assignments was to record the fiery speakers of the Free Speech Movement on the UC Berkeley campus. Bacon was arrested during the student occupation of Sproul Hall and spent three days in juvenile hall.
At Berkeley High, Bacon helped counterbalance the Young Republican and Young Democrat clubs by co-founding the Young Socialists Club. One of the club’s first actions was to invite the head of California’s Communist Party to speak at the school. The school administration put the kibosh on the invite and made Bacon an offer: He would be assured of graduating provided he did not attend the graduation ceremony.
“I guess they thought I’d disrupt it or something,” Bacon said.
After high school, he worked as a laborer, carpenter and cook before attending Laney College to study print setting. When he couldn’t find a job in a union print shop, he took a nonunion job and set about organizing his co-workers. When he was fired for his efforts, his career path was set: over the next 20 years he would be involved in organizing campaigns for the Molders Union, International Ladies Garment Workers and the United Electrical Workers.
Longer versions of this story have appeared in the East Bay Express and on the Pacific Media Works Guild website.