Community and faith leaders have condemned a May 4th Superior Court ruling that bars implementation of a City of Los Angeles law that would have provided a living wage for workers at hotels near Los Angeles International Airport, and have renewed their call for LAX hotels to help lift their workers out of poverty by paying them a living wage.

“This ruling should be a wake-up call to people of good faith across Los Angeles that Century Boulevard hotels, led by the LAX Hilton, are determined to deny their own workers decent wages and a better life,” said Rev. Anna Olson, Deputy Director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE). “The hotels’ action runs counter to the shared values of our city and country, and the right of hard-working men and women to raise their families in dignity.”

Century Boulevard hotel workers joined in calling on their employers to improve conditions rather than blocking such efforts. “It is my dream to give my children a better life,” said Maria Luisa Avalos, a housekeeper at the LAX Hilton. “The hotels can help me and my co-workers fulfill that dream by paying a living wage, but instead they are fighting to stop us.”

For the past 15 months, a coalition of community, civic and faith leaders organized by LAANE has engaged in an effort to address conditions for LAX hotel workers and nearby communities. The coalition has gathered thousands of signatures, participated in numerous rallies and testified at public hearings as part of a citywide mobilization in support of hotel workers on Century Boulevard.

Hotels near LAX enjoy the highest occupancy rates in Los Angeles, yet many workers in these hotels still live in poverty. Hotel workers in the LAX/PCH submarket earn 20% less than their counterparts in downtown L.A. Average annual earnings for LAX/PCH workers is $20,328 – barely above the federal $20,000 federal poverty threshold for a family of four. Some workers qualify for multiple government assistance programs.

The nearby communities of Lennox, Inglewood and Hawthorne, where a large number of these workers live, suffer high rates of poverty, crime and overcrowding. One in four residents in these communities lives below the federal poverty line, a measure of extreme poverty, while more than 40% of children come from poor households. Median household income is 25% lower than in L.A. County as a whole.

The LAX Enhancement Zone Ordinance enacted in February of this year by the L.A. City Council would have applied the city’s existing living wage rate of $10.64 an hour ($9.39 for those with employer-provided health benefits) to thousands of hotel workers who work at 13 hotels on Century Boulevard near LAX.

The City Council passed a living wage law for Century hotel workers in November 2006, but in December hotels and other businesses spent nearly $1 million to collect enough signatures to qualify a ballot referendum on the ordinance. Business groups had reportedly planned to spend several million dollars to convince voters to repeal the living wage law. But a poll released in late January showed that 74% of votes supported the living wage law.

Business leaders subsequently dropped their efforts to use a ballot referendum to avoid a living wage requirement as part of an agreement between the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the City Council and supporters of the living wage. The City Council rescinded the original Century Corridor living wage ordinance in January and passed the Enhancement Zone Ordinance in February, which would have raised wages for Century Boulevard hotel workers while addressing concerns raised by business leaders. The ordinance would have phased in the wage standard with three steps, created an enhancement zone paving the way for revitalization of the Century Corridor, established procedural guidelines for future Council consideration of living wage legislation and mandated studies on how the living wage law affects business and workers.

Despite these provisions, the Chamber of Commerce unexpectedly announced it would not support the new ordinance, while acknowledging that it “contains provisions that were discussed in our negotiations…” In March, hotels and other business leaders filed suit against the Enhancement Zone law, which led to this month’s ruling.

“The continuing effort by LAX hotels to try and deny their workers a living wage has far-reaching consequences for thousands of men and women, their families and the communities in which they live,” said Rev. Altagracia Perez of Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood. “These hotels have chosen to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and deny their own workers a better life.”