Fact and Fiction: The Truth About the Campaign to Kill the Living Wage

By Vivian Rothstein and Rev. Sandie Richards

Disinformation in the service of greed is a dangerous thing. A case in point is the current campaign to kill Santa Monica's living wage.

Last year, voters in our community were subjected to the Orwellian experience of a supposed living wage initiative bankrolled by luxury beach hotels. When residents discovered that Measure KK was actually an anti-living wage initiative, they defeated it with 79 percent of the vote.

Voters don't like being taken for ride. But clearly the beach hotels and their allies didn't get the message, because once again, distortion and deception are being used to deny workers a decent wage.

For the last three weeks, paid petition gatherers have been collecting signatures for a referendum on our new living wage law.

The business sponsors of this effort have stated publicly that the referendum is merely intended to let people vote on the issue. But the petition itself gives the lie to this claim. At the top, the headline reads "Referendum Against an Ordinance Passed by the City Council."

Make no mistake: the petition is designed to kill the living wage. For this reason, living wage supporters are urging voters not to sign or, if they signed by mistake, to revoke their signature by contacting the City Clerk immediately.

Like last year, the slogan adopted by living wage opponents -- "Let the People Decide" --is nothing more than empty rhetoric. If any doubt remains about this, it should be put to rest by the fact that living wage opponents have made it clear they'll sue the city if the people don't decide in their favor.

Having based their petition campaign on an outrageous fiction, the businesses trying to repeal the living wage apparently felt free to invent other myths. Take, for example, the assertion by living wage foes that they would rely heavily on volunteers to collect signatures.

Instead, like last year, an army of paid signature gatherers has descended on the city. As of early this week, these professionals were reportedly being paid $4.50 for every name they collect.

Worse still is the fact that many of these hired guns are blatantly misleading voters about the petition. Some are telling residents that the petition will raise wages. Others are saying it will help people in other cities.

These and other mistruths have led the Santa Monica city attorney to launch an investigation. The California Election Code prohibits the deliberate misrepresentation of a referendum or initiative.

Backers of the petition have also misled voters about the living wage law itself. Literature distributed by the petition sponsors states that the ordinance mandates 15 compensated days off per year for sick leave, vacation or other needs; covers recipients of financial assistance; and exempts businesses with union contracts. None of these claims are true.

Nor is the suggestion that the living wage law is only the first step in a citywide campaign. Reminiscent of the Cold War era domino theory, this notion is merely another scare tactic designed to frighten voters into signing the repeal petition.

Given all these distortions, half-truths and outright lies, it should come as no surprise that living wage opponents are now arguing that low-wage tourism workers are already making a living wage. As evidence, they point to wages at a couple of luxury beach hotels.

What they don't admit is that wages have only increased in response to the living wage campaign. Without the efforts of living wage advocates, these hotels would still be paying poverty wages.

The truth is, many of Santa Monica's largest businesses continue to pay poverty wages --why else would they so vehemently oppose the living wage law?

According to a study released last year by the City, the majority of low-wage workers in Santa Monica's thriving Coastal Zone are living in conditions of poverty or near poverty. Indeed, the family of the average low-wage Coastal Zone worker is eligible for over $8,000 a year in anti-poverty government assistance.

Under the living wage law, about 40 large, successful companies -- less than one percent of the city's businesses -- would be required to pay their workers $10.50 an hour. That's the amount at which a worker supporting a family of four is no longer eligible for food stamps.

Isn't it ironic that while these large businesses contend that they can't afford to pay their workers enough to keep them off public assistance, they have plenty of money to fight the living wage campaign? Since last year, they've spent nearly $1.5 million -- more than 90 percent of it from half a dozen beach hotels.

Remember that when you hear living wage opponents talking about the right to vote or attacking unions, they're really trying to distract you from the real issue: full-time workers living in poverty.

Why? Because they know that Santa Monicans overwhelmingly support fair wages for housekeepers, dishwashers, janitors and other low-wage workers in our booming tourism industry.

And because they know that Santa Monicans expect large, successful businesses to be responsible corporate citizens by paying more than poverty wages.

Vivian Rothstein and Rev. Sandi Richards are leaders of Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism (SMART), the group that pushed for the pioneering living wage law approved by the City Council last month.