‘Living wage’ foes collect signatures

Opponents of the city’s expansion of the “living wage” ordinance to workers at LAX-area hotels have gathered twice the number of signatures required to qualify a referendum for the ballot, according to people familiar with the effort.

The foes’ political committee, which is called Save LA Jobs and is backed by hotel owners and business groups, has scheduled a news conference for this morning at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The group is expected to say that they will turn in more than 100,000 signatures.

Under the law, the group had to collect signatures of 49,300 city voters within a month of the mayor signing the expansion of the ordinance. The signature deadline is today.

It is unclear when or even whether voters will get to cast ballots on the referendum. The city clerk has 30 business days to verify the signatures. The City Council also must decide whether to rescind the ordinance or to schedule it for a citywide vote.

If the council chooses to put the issue on the ballot, the vote would not be held until May 2007 at the earliest.

The city’s living wage ordinance, which was passed a decade ago, requires that workers at companies that contract with the city be paid wages and benefits equal to $10.64 per hour.

The new law, which is strongly backed by Los Angeles’ labor movement, for the first time expands that worker protection to businesses -- a dozen Los Angeles International Airport-area hotels -- that have no formal financial relationship with the city.

Many workers at the hotels already make a living wage, but labor has embraced the law as a means to pressure the hotels to recognize an ongoing effort to organize their workers.

The hotels have resisted that effort, with some suspending or firing employees involved in the effort.

Save LA Jobs officials declined comment Thursday. The group has not released information on its donors or the amount it is spending on the campaign. Signatures gatherers throughout the city told The Times in recent weeks that they were receiving $3 per signature.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who sponsored the new law, called the referendum “a shame” and said that a ballot fight would cost taxpayers $2.5 million.

Nevertheless, she said, “I’m not afraid of this going to a vote of the people. I think a vote of the people will stand on the side of these hotel workers.”