Union Activists Lobby for Century Boulevard
Workers at Hotels Along Street Tell Council an Economically Stronger Area Would Aid Work Force and City
Daily Breeze - February 25, 2006
By Alison Shackelford Hewitt
Dozens of low-income workers from hotels near Los Angeles International Airport came to the Los Angeles City Council meeting Friday to ask for help in improving the Century Boulevard corridor near LAX and unionizing the workers.
Hotel employees who live in Hawthorne, Lennox, Westchester and Inglewood asked the city to develop policies to improve working conditions and to help spruce up streets in the area. They also asked the city to work with the hotels to build a "mini-conference center" on Century Boulevard that could enable the hotels to raise room rates and pay higher wages.
Luis Salazar, a Hawthorne resident, told the council that low pay and high health insurance costs lead many hotel employees to work two jobs to make ends meet.
He himself drives shuttle buses at two different hotels and rarely sees his children, he said.
"When I come home, they're asleep," Salazar explained.
Seven of the council's 15 members voiced support for the workers, saying they believe that helping the employees would help the community in general.
"Thirty-five percent of the city's bed tax comes from the hotels along Century Boulevard," Councilman Bill Rosendahl said. "We are enriched by the hard work of the people here. ... We need to do more" for them.
A motion by Rosendahl supporting the hotel employees and their goals was passed by the council last week. It will wend its way through several council committees before the council takes any action.
A study released earlier this month by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a worker advocacy group, found that the monthly wages earned by Century Boulevard hotel workers are approximately several hundred dollars less than those of most hotel workers in Los Angeles County.
The LAANE study also found that poverty and crime rates are relatively high in the neighboring communities of Lennox, Hawthorne and Inglewood.
Union officials said higher wages could help address both issues.
To improve conditions for hotel workers, the council could enact living-wage guidelines, among many other options, said officials from Unite Here Local 11, which is trying to unionize hotel employees along the Century Boulevard corridor.
Cleaning up the area by planting trees and fixing sidewalks would also make the area more attractive to visitors and more comfortable for the workers, the officials said.
Building a conference center near the airport isn't only a goal for the employees -- it has long been a goal of the hotels as well, said Laurie Hughes, executive director of Gateway to L.A., a business improvement district representing many of the airport hotels.
"It is something that is needed here," Hughes said. "It would create more of a destination. People would stay longer."
"Most of the hotels, their occupancy is taken up to a large degree by airline crews, so if we can attract corporate meetings, we can get away from the airline crew business -- which has a contract for low, low rates -- and get more toward business rates," she added.
Investing in such a project wouldn't be new for the city, Councilman Alex Padilla pointed out.
The city has also earmarked funds for the upcoming convention center hotel project downtown, in part to create jobs, he said.
|
For over 20 years, Isabel “Segunda” Brentner has worked at the LAX Hilton, keeping her focus on her family and her job. “My priorities [were] to help my family,” says Brentner, who, along with raising her own children, cared for both her father and grandmother when they were ill. 
Enedina Alvarez, a 54-year-old single parent, says she must be both mother and father to her teenage children. Yet, with two jobs, she has barely enough money to house, feed and clothe them—and precious little time to spend with them. Although she receives health insurance through her job, she cannot afford to insure her children. Alvarez says, “I pray to God that my kids do not get sick because I cannot pay the medical bills.” 
Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women. The majority are women of color and immigrants.
