Living Wage War Escalates

By Jorge Casuso

The stakes are rising in Santa Monica's living wage war, and so are the costs.

As researchers step up efforts and pay fees to collect data, a sometimes clandestine - and costly -- game of political chess is shaping the strategies behind a wage war that pits well-funded hotel and restaurant owners against tenant activists and labor organizers.

Last week, Professor Robert Pollin's team of economists - who were hired by the city after submitting the only proposal to study an unprecedented living wage ordinance -- began offering hotel workers $30 to participate in an employee survey.

The researchers from the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst are racing against a June 26 deadline to present the City Council with a draft of the study. The study analyzes the effects of requiring businesses along the coast with more than 50 employees to pay workers at least $10.69 an hour.

"We obviously would like to finish as quickly as possible so we can start with the data analysis," said Mark Brenner, a research fellow with PERI. "We're doing pretty well, but I don't want to be overly optimistic. By the time you get a rhythm, it's almost done."

The $30 stipend for a 20 to 30-minute interview - which is being paid out of PERI's $50,000 city contract -- is intended to encourage workers to participate in the survey, Brenner said.

"It's fairly standard practice to pay a small stipend to participate, and it encourages people to participate and encourages friends to participate," Brenner said.

Brenner declined to discuss the specifics of the survey. "It seems the whole thing is just totally charged," he said. "We don't want to inflame things."

The $30 offer, which was printed in both Spanish and English and handed to workers of at least one major luxury hotel, came less than two weeks after the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to its members cautioning them about the employee survey.

"492 of you received a March 29 communication from Dr. Robert Pollin that requested you to participate in the completion of an included survey," the April 5 letter said. "An unknown number of you located in the Coastal Zone also received a March 29 communication that requested you to '...simply provid(e) us (Dr. Pollin/PERI) with a list of your employees and the contact information you have on them.'

"We have not seen the employee survey, nor do we condone the method with which you have been approached for this information," the letter said. "Because of privacy issues for both employer and employee and the extreme politicizing of this entire exercise by the selection of (Pollin)... the success of this process is doubtful, at best, and potentially a disaster for everyone involved."

The cost and intensity of the political campaigns waged by the warring camps also escalated last week. Supporters of a business-backed living wage ballot initiative - which covers employers with contracts or subsidies from the city-- tried to counter an offensive launched by Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism (SMART), which crafted the pioneering proposal being studied by the council.

The business group - which goes by the name Santa Monicans for a Living Wage - increased the fee it pays signature gatherers from $1 to $2 per signature, based on the number of signatures gathered.

Strategists, however, deny that the fee hike is a response to the "Truth Teams" that hit the streets earlier this month to confront the paid signature gatherers and discourage voters from supporting an initiative they note does not cover hotel and restaurant workers.

"We'd always contracted to do that," said Mark Mosher, the San Francisco political consultant who is running the initiative campaign. "We pay one buck up front, and as they produce, it's two bucks as a bonus."

Mosher said the high price of a signature is the result of competition. "There are other statewide initiatives that pay a lot more than we do," Mosher said. "Good signature gatherers hop on that."

Mosher said that the campaign for Proposition 26, a school funding initiative, pays its signature gatherers $2 before a bonus.

"Our challenge is to get the best people to be competitive," said Mosher, who helped run and raise $1.4 million for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's reelection bid. "We had to pay more. We had to go to the $2 level."

Mosher said Santa Monicans for a Living Wage has gathered more than 2,500 signatures as of Friday, many of them through the mail.

"The mail piece worked really well," Mosher said. "We had a ton of signatures.... We got plenty of time. I think we're hitting our stride."

Mosher said the campaign recently sent out a second mailer endorsed by several key community leaders, including former Councilman Herb Katz, who chairs the city's Bayside District, and longtime activists and former council candidates Irene Zivi and Donna Alvarez. The mailer, which was sent to the city's registered voters, also includes a copy of the petition they can sign.

SMART organizer Stephanie Monroe says her group's strategy is working and disputes the fee Mosher said he is paying the signature gatherers. She said a SMART "mole" infiltrated one of the training sessions for the gatherers, who were all offered $3 per signature.

Monroe said the "Truth Teams" are keeping up the pressure as they wrap up their second week on the streets.

"We had at least 15 people every day, more on weekends," Monroe said. "They're starting to argue with us now."

Mosher acknowledged that SMART's teams have stepped up the effort and said he is carefully monitoring the escalating war being waged daily in super market parking lots.

"There are some things they're doing that are slowing me down," Mosher said. "I don't want to put signature gatherers in a position where they can get roughed up.

"I don't necessarily want to have a bench-clearing fight for the heck of it," Mosher said. "They're giving me a run for my money, but I've been there before.... I think a little bit of opposition has galvanized our folks. Now we've got a challenge."