<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2963" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT size=4>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR vAlign=bottom>
<TD><A href="http://www.latimes.com/"><IMG height=38 alt=latimes.com
src="http://www.latimes.com/images/standard/lat_both.gif" width=205
vspace=3 border=0></A></TD>
<TD>
<SCRIPT language=JavaScript
src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/trb.latimes/news/local;ptype=ps;slug=la-me-wage16nov16;rg=r;zc=83843;ref=latimescom;pos=printstory;dcopt=ist;sz=728x90;tile=1;ord=47431577"
type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>
<NOSCRIPT><A
href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/trb.latimes/news/local;ptype=ps;slug=la-me-wage16nov16;rg=r;zc=83843;ref=latimescom;pos=printstory;sz=728x90;tile=1;ord=47431577"
target=_blank></A></NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<HR class=thick>
<DIV style="MARGIN-LEFT: 1em; MARGIN-RIGHT: 1em"><A
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wage16nov16,0,1859105.story?track=tothtml">http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wage16nov16,0,1859105.story?track=tothtml</A><BR>
<H4>THE STATE</H4>
<H1>Airport hotels ordered to pay a `living wage'</H1>
<DIV class=storysubhead>Workers celebrate the City Council's vote. Businesses
say they'll seek a referendum.</DIV>By Joe Mathews and Duke Helfand<BR>Times
Staff Writers<BR><BR>November 16, 2006<BR><BR>The Los Angeles City Council voted
overwhelmingly Wednesday to require hotels near Los Angeles International
Airport to pay their workers wages and benefits equal to $10.64 per hour — the
first time that the city has demanded such a "living wage" from businesses that
have no direct financial relationship with the government.<BR><BR>In voting 11
to 3 for the measure, council members gave organized labor a victory and
demonstrated anew that Los Angeles — long known for the power of business
interests and the weakness of its labor unions — has become a place where the
concerns of workers have the upper hand.<BR><BR>Living wage laws have been
adopted in more than 120 cities to ensure that employees of companies
contracting with the government receive pay that will keep them out of poverty.
But only half a dozen cities — among them union-friendly places such as
Berkeley, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — have applied such laws to private
employers with no financial relationship with the city government. To date, such
laws have withstood legal challenges.<BR><BR>"This is a very stark and
significant moment for all of us," said City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose
district includes the airport-area hotels and who actively supported the
ordinance.<BR><BR>Business leaders said the change would hurt the city's image
with investors and ultimately its economy. While the ordinance is limited to
hotel workers near LAX, the labor movement in Los Angeles and nationwide has
targeted other service industries such as restaurants and retail for union
organizing. <BR><BR>Council members said that because the hotels benefit from
their proximity to a public facility — the airport — the city has a strong
interest in ensuring the rights of workers. But business leaders, who fear
similar reasoning could apply to businesses near the port and other public
entities, say they will ask voters to overturn the new ordinance. <BR><BR>"You'd
be naive to believe that this starts and stops with 12 hotels," said Gary
Toebben, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. "If you really
care" about business, "why would you tell business that Big Brother is looking
over their shoulder?"<BR><BR>After the vote, about 100 hotel workers who filled
most of the seats in the council chamber began a rhythmic clap familiar in the
city's union halls and chanted <I>"Sí se puede" ("Yes, we
can.")</I><BR><BR>"It's about time there's a City Council that stands for the
workers and not for the bigger companies," said Lorena Lopez, a union organizer
who works with the airport-area hotel employees. <BR><BR>Wednesday's vote
advances the ordinance but does not make it law. A vote to do that is scheduled
next week, but both labor and business leaders said they consider final approval
a formality. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said he would sign the
measure.<BR><BR>The new law will thrust the city government into the battle to
organize airport-area hotel workers, one of the highest-profile and contentious
fights in the country. As part of a nationwide organizing effort, Unite Here,
the union that represents hotel workers, has spent more than a year organizing
approximately 3,500 low-wage workers at a dozen hotels near LAX, the largest
group of nonunion workers that Unite Here is trying to organize.<BR><BR>The
union has demanded that the hotels recognize it as the bargaining representative
of the workers based on union cards signed by hotel employees. The hotels have
aggressively fought that effort, and demanded that workers submit to secret
balloting.<BR><BR>The ordinance dovetails with the union's strategy of putting
public pressure on the hotels to recognize the union and begin bargaining. The
ordinance's sponsor, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, has participated in union actions
outside the hotels, and two council members were among about 300 people arrested
in September as part of a civil disobedience action designed to spotlight
working conditions at the hotels.<BR><BR>UCLA professor Ruth Milkman, author of
"L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the Labor Movement," said of
the council vote: "The fact that it's so closely tied to a organizing campaign
is new in L.A."<BR><BR>Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at UC Santa
Barbara, called the vote "a tribute to the power of the immigrant-based Los
Angeles labor movement."<BR><BR>Faced with fierce opposition from the business
community, some council members supported the measure but tried to downplay its
effect. A motion passed unanimously to emphasize that the ordinance is strictly
limited to airport-area hotels. And supporters, including Hahn, also maintained
that the vote was an attempt to help working people and not boost the
union.<BR><BR>But language in the measure in effect urges the hotels to
recognize the union and engage in collective bargaining with members. The
ordinance offers a choice: The hotels must pay a city-mandated living wage of
$10.64 — unless they reach a collectively bargained agreement with their
employees. It is unclear how many workers would benefit from the law, or how
much it would cost the hotels.<BR><BR>Labor officials estimated that 40% to 60%
of the workers at the hotels make less than the "living wage," but
representatives of the hotels say that some of those workers, with tips, already
exceed that standard. Gerry F. Miller, the city's chief legislative analyst,
said his office examined wage data from labor and the hotels but there was not
enough information to reach independent conclusions. <BR><BR>Business groups
said they plan to gather signatures in a bid to put the matter before voters. If
they succeed, the law could not take effect until there is a public vote on a
referendum, which would not occur before May.<BR><BR>Once the mayor signs the
measure, opponents would have 30 days to gather the signatures of 49,308
voters.<BR><BR>Hotel operators complained that the city was selectively
targeting their strip and hinted at a legal challenge funded by a broad
coalition of businesses if the referendum is unsuccessful.<BR><BR>"The business
organizations in Los Angeles are very upset about this and very concerned," said
Arnie Berghoff, a hotel lobbyist. "Why in the world is this city telling private
businesses on private property how to do business?"<BR><BR>Councilmen Bernard C.
Parks, Greig Smith and Dennis Zine voted against the living wage ordinance.
Parks alone voted against two related ordinances, one that would provide job
protections to hotel workers during ownership changes and another that would
guarantee to workers the service charges collected during hotel
banquets.<BR><BR>Parks aggressively questioned James Elmendorf, senior policy
analyst at the labor-affiliated Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and
George Kieffer, a prominent lawyer who has been hired by the hotels to fight
it.<BR><BR>Kieffer told the council that hotels were being singled out without
any rational basis. "You might as well adapt the living wage for the entire
city," he said in frustration, a statement that was applauded by some hotel
workers. </DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>