Union Launches Unprecedented Campaign for Living Wage

By Jorge Casuso

Monday, June 7--The first public step was taken Saturday night to make Santa Monica the nation's first city to impose a living wage on the private sector.

At a spirited, and sometimes emotional, rally attended by some 300 supporters, the local Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union launched an unprecedented campaign to impose a living wage on tourism-related businesses along the city's coast.

"This is huge," said union organizer Kurt Peterson, after the rally at the Church in Ocean Park to honor the Worker Organizing Committee of the Miramar Sheraton. "This would be the first city in the U.S. to do this kind of ordinance. The tourism industry is booming and they need to share their wealth."

Although hotels are the main targets of the campaign, other businesses, such as large restaurants, could be affected, Peterson said. The coastal zone, which includes the Miramar as well as Santa Monica's other luxury hotels, runs along the city's coast west of Fourth Street north of Pico Blvd. and west of Lincoln Ave. south of Pico.

The union has not indicated what the living wage should be, but a booklet distributed at the rally noted that a full-time worker in a family of four must earn $10.69 an hour to no longer need food stamps. The minimum wage is $5.75.

"The tourism industry is booming, but workers are earning poverty level wages and can't live in Santa Monica," said Miramar Committee member Gail Escobar. "We spend a third of our days working here. We are part of this community, and we will make our voices heard.

"Our struggle extends beyond the walls of the Miramar," Escobar said. "Each one of you in this room is a part of the struggle. We will win only if workers and the community unite."

Key community leaders - including Mayor Pam O'Connor and council members Richard Bloom, Ken Genser and Paul Rosenstein -- attended the event. (Councilmen Michael Feinstein and Kevin McKeown, who did not attend, also are staunch union supporters.) Also in attendance were two judges, several rent control board members and administrators, Assembly member Sheila Kuehl and Los Angeles City Council member Jackie Goldberg, both of whom addressed the crowd.

"I want to be here to honor the workers," said Kuehl, whose district includes Santa Monica. "It is not an easy thing, but it is a joyful thing to enter these struggles. They understand we must stand together or fall apart. They were there for me, and I will be there for them."

Goldberg told the crowd she had received a letter from the management at the Miramar Sheraton -- which has been fighting to decertify the union -- urging her not to attend the rally.

"I informed them there is no place on earth that I would rather be than here to honor these men and these women and these families," she told a cheering crowd. " Hacia la victoria (Onwards to victory)."

The campaign, which has been rumored for months, was delayed until after April's special council election, which gave the city's powerful tenants group a super majority on the seven member council. Despite a sympathetic council, -- many of whose members counted on union support to win-- the campaign is expected to take months before an ordinance comes up for a vote.

"We want to build a movement in Santa Monica and educate people," Peterson said. "We're going to need thousands of people who agree with the premise, and that takes time. We're willing to take that time."

The Miramar, the only union hotel in the city, is engaged in a battle to decertify the union. Late last month, the National Labor Relations Board concurred with a report ordering that a 1997 election to decertify the union - which Miramar management won by 12 votes - be overturned and a new election held.

"The essential argument is a moral one - the right to live a decent life," Peterson told the crowd. "It's not just the wage but the right to fight for that wage."