Workers Ask City Council to Help Revitalize the Lax Century Blvd. Corridor

Worker Profiles

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. More

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.” More

Who Are Hotel Housekeepers?*

Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women. The majority are women of color and immigrants.

There are 1.3 million hotel workers in the U.S. and 280,000 in Canada, of whom approximately one quarter are housekeepers.

Hotel Housekeeper Work Is Dangerous Work

Hotel workers have a 40% higher injury rate (5.9%) than workers in the service sector (4.2%).

According to a recent study of company records covering thousands of employee injuries, hotel housekeepers face an injury rate of 10.4%, almost double the injury rate for non-housekeepers (5.6%).

Hotel housekeeper injuries are debilitating. Back injuries, housemaids' knee (bursitis), and shoulder pain can lead to permanent disability.

*UNITE HERE

Why We Need A

"PLAN FOR A
NEW CENTURY"

A new white paper calls on the city of Los Angeles and industry leaders to invest in the Century Corridor and its workforce. A Plan for a New Century will benefit workers, communities, hotels and the entire city. More

A New Gateway
Workers Ask City Council to Help Revitalize the Lax/Century Blvd. Corridor
Los Angeles Alternative - March 3, 2006
By Evan George

Every evening, as dusk hits the jet trails over LAX, thousands of visitors leave the airport curb in Super Shuttles and rental cars and shoot toward Century Blvd., a street of high-rise hotel suites, corporate buffets and lurid neon promises. Live Nude Girls.

Members of the L.A. Coalition For a New Century say that the only thing more unfortunate than the creepy welcome greeting L.A. tourists and business travelers receive upon touchdown are the broken backs of the Century Blvd. workers the industry is built on.

On Friday, February 24th, a group of over 100 community leaders and hotel workers entered city council chambers to deliver a petition signed by thousands, in support of a plan to revitalize Century Blvd. and turn the LAX area that some call “the gateway to L.A.” into a “gateway to prosperity.”

The appeal, led by LACNC, received a warm welcome by a number of city council members who spoke in support of the measures.

“I was excited by the response we got from city council,” said Danny Tobar, a founding member of LACNC and former city council representative for Inglewood. “At least eight of them stood up and expressed their support, and it really strengthened the workers.”

These low-income hotel employees, many of whom work more than one service job at the many LAX area hotels, say they need help unionizing. The neighboring areas that many of these employees call home-Lennox, Hawthorne, Westchester and Inglewood-are known for high crime rates and struggling local economies. Workers say their plight as employees and as residents of LAX’s poverty stricken communities go hand-in-hand.

LACNC started back in August of 2005 with a report on ways to improve the Century corridor and its workforce. The paper, “Plan for A New Century,” was assisted by the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy, which has led the living wage campaign for years. The report concluded that the conditions of Century Blvd.-low wage jobs, strip clubs and the poverty of adjacent communities-was depriving the city of millions of dollars in potential tax revenue, sending the wrong message to visitors about L.A. and neglecting the needs of tens of thousands of Angelenos.

LACNC has outlined a proposal for Century Blvd. that addresses the entire business plan of area hotels. The coalition is advocating a major revitalization of the Century corridor as a major conference center. Currently, much of the hotel business focuses on the airline industry, relying on the discount rates offered to the major airlines for staff stays. Instead, workers say a new push to revitalize the area as a competitive conference center location would bring in revenue to allow for higher wages and unionized labor.

“The coalition is looking for a comprehensive solution, a partnership. It’s a pretty ambitious campaign,” said Danny Feingold, who works for LAANE. But Coalition leaders say they need the help of the city council to deal with the hotel industry, notorious for its opposition to unionized labor.

“There is the potential for it to be a difficult partnership with the industry,” says Tobar. “But what we’re asking for is really what they’ve been talking about for years now-the conference center proposal.”

A motion by District 11 Councilman Bill Rosendahl supporting the hotel employees was passed by the council a week earlier. It will wind its way through several council committees before any action is taken. The next step, having issued the latest petition to city council, is to wait. The coalition hopes that late this month city council will hold public hearings regarding their proposals. The ideas for revitalizing Century Blvd., of course, pose less of a sticking point then the union and wage issues, but LACNC insists that the issues are related and cannot be dealt with separately or exclusively.

“We want the policy to include not just investment but some standards, job standards,” says Feingold. “We’re just waiting to see how it unfolds. We’d like to work with the industry, with the city and the community, but we’ll have to see what happens.”