Ron Herrera, the president of Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has resigned. The Los Angeles Times Report the move late Monday, citing that it happened during a meeting with the union’s executive board.
The news comes after leaked audio of a closed-door conversation was released Sunday in which Herrera and Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León were heard in conversation with the then-City Council President Nury Martinez as she made racists, disparaging remarks about her colleagues and, in one case, a Black child.
Herrera is following in the footsteps Martinez, who on Monday resigned as president of the city council. “I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments.”Martinez’s colleagues and constituents continue to call for her resignation from City Council. Martinez has yet to make a decision. “I hope that you will give me the opportunity to make amends,” her statement said.”
The Federation of Labor issued Herrera’s apology Monday for his complicity in the leakage of the conversation.
“There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room. Period,” Herrera’s apology, released Monday, said. “And I didn’t step up to stop them and I will have to bear the burden of that cross moving forward.”
According to theLos Angeles Times, the audio captured a closed-door conversation from October 2021 between Martinez, Cedillo, de León and Herrera. The comments are directed at Councilmember Mike Bonin, a white man, and his young son who is Black. Martinez ridicules Bonin for his thinking “he’s f—ing Black,”The councilman was accused of treating his son as an accessory while he rode on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade float. He then spoke of the son. “Parece changuito,”Or “He’s like a monkey.”
“They’re raising him like a little white kid,” Martinez said. “I was like, this kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and then I’ll bring him back.”
Elsewhere in the recordings, Martinez says of District Attorney George Gascón, “F— that guy, he’s with the Blacks.”
Protests and calls for the involved parties’ resignations – including from Bonin, who called the comments “vile, abhorrent, and utterly disgraceful” – have been ongoing since Sunday.
