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3,000 Rally in LAX Area for Hotel Worker Rights
Daily Breeze - September 29, 2006
By Josh Grossberg and Doug Irving
Hundreds of people were arrested near Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday in a protest for hotel-worker rights that shut down Century Boulevard during the evening rush hour.
The highly choreographed demonstration attracted nearly 3,000 supporters, including religious leaders, elected officials, union workers and students, who waved signs, sang songs and shouted slogans in support of the thousands of immigrants who do manual labor in the hotels that line the busy corridor that leads to the airport. Many of the workers earn less than $10 an hour.
"I want people to realize that what they do is crucial for the economy," said 19-year-old UCLA student Clare Douglas. "They support our lifestyle. We're just trying to make this visible to the common folk."
Protesters and police had worked out the details before the event and the well-scripted demonstration proceeded exactly as organizers planned.
The event started with a rally near the entrance to the airport, featuring speakers and musician Ben Harper. Just after 5 p.m. the group marched along the street while police on motorcycles and horses watched.
About 200 people were arrested and taken away in a caravan of buses to several county jail facilities, where they were cited for unlawful assembly. They had already given their personal information to police to make processing them easier.
Aside from the preplanned arrests, there were no other incidents, said a Los Angeles police spokeswoman.
Those arrested wore signs saying "I am a human being" in both English and Spanish.
"We're here to strengthen the movement," said Peter Dreier, a political science professor at Occidental College. "We want to influence public opinion. People are sympathetic, but they need to learn about it."
Joe Frazier, a priest at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Torrance, said he had a long history of civil disobedience. He said he was proud to take part in the action.
"I was looking forward to it," he said. "I've been arrested all my adult life."
About half the group stopped in front of the Hilton hotel and dozens of them sat in the street. The rest marched to the Westin hotel about a mile away and repeated the act of civil disobedience. After police announced that they would begin arresting people who did not get off the street, members of the group were led away and photographed.
Traffic trying to reach LAX was detoured up La Cienega Boulevard, then along Arbor Vitae and back down Airport Boulevard.
"Traffic will flow," James Butts Jr., the deputy executive director of airport law enforcement for Los Angeles World Airports, said before the march. "It will just flow slower."
About a dozen airport police officers worked overtime to supplement the evening shift during the march, said officer Belinda Nettles, a spokeswoman for the airport police.
LAX officials and airport police expected the demonstration to have little effect on airport operations or flights.
"It's a planned demonstration," Nettles said. "We don't expect that it's going to affect the airport at all."
Hotel workers watched and waved as the group marched past them. Jose Landino, who works in banquet services at the Westin, said he appreciated the support.
"First what we want is respect," Landino said. "Second is higher wages because they are not paying what they are supposed to."
The demonstration shut off Century Boulevard at the peak delivery time for Aerounion, a shipping company at the airport. The company had to delay a cargo flight to Mexico on Thursday night because its trucks couldn't get in to make their deliveries on time.
"It's an inconvenience, you know?" Vice President Steven Connolly said. "But you've just got to adjust. We're OK with it."
Some local businesses were passing around a fact sheet that sought to rebut, point by point, some of the key complaints of the marchers. The fact sheet claimed that LAX-area hotels pay an average wage of $9.21 an hour, with health benefits, for room attendants -- several cents above a "living wage."
But the protesters said many of the workers weren't making enough money to get by.
"For me, looking at global problems, the most important is the economic one," said Ross Kinsler, a Presbyterian minister from Altadena. "Los Angeles does not have starvation, but we have people who work full time and don't make a living wage. That's a sin to me."
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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.
