The Hard Facts of Life Without a Living Wage

It was Sunday afternoon in the land of the new economic order. Willie Love was still in her church clothes. Eight hours to go before work, the graveyard shift. She and her husband sat in the dark in their stone-and-stucco house in South-Central Los Angeles. The drapes were drawn to keep the front room sofa from fading. The lights were out to save on the electric bill.

On the coffee table, surrounded by knickknacks, was a prize she got for being an Avon lady, one of two day jobs she keeps in addition to her night job, to make ends meet. She patted her hair, gray at the temples and styled by herself because she can’t afford the hairdresser. She stifled a yawn. It has been eight years since Willie Love last got enough sleep.

Here’s the situation: She is 58, and, as her husband puts it, her family is “just surviving, is all.” For eight years, since he suffered a stroke and a heart attack, they and their grown son, who is deaf, have lived on her husband’s disability check and her pay. The main source of her income has been her night job as a baggage claim checker at Los Angeles International Airport. Eight years and she still gets minimum wage.

No benefits, no pension, no sick time without a note from a doctor. Her take-home is $380 every two weeks. Anyone who ever lost a piece of luggage can tell you that her job is not inconsequential: From 11 p.m. until 7:30 a.m., she makes sure the throngs of travelers rushing in and out of the Delta Airlines terminal don’t make off with each others’ bags.

She herself can’t afford air travel. She washes her uniform--gray dress slacks, navy blue blazer--by hand because she can’t afford to have it dry-cleaned. Once a businessman got off an airplane and told her he knew the man who owns the security company she works for, Argenbright Security Inc., which is owned by a conglomerate in Atlanta. “Oh, he’s a multimillionaire,” the traveler said as she checked his bags.

Thoughts ran through her head, thoughts that surprised her as a Christian woman: the restaurants she couldn’t afford to eat at, the vacations she couldn’t take, the way Christmas would come every year and there wouldn’t even be a party, or a bonus, or a free turkey from management.

“Well, he’s the owner and I guess he deserves something,” she smiled politely. But in her heart, a little voice grumbled: Little as he pays you, he oughta be rich.

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Well, life is tough in the new economic order. Which might have been explanation enough for Willie Love had insult not then been heaped upon injury. Eighteen months ago, the city of Los Angeles passed an ordinance mandating that low-paid workers like her, employed by contractors at municipal centers like LAX, get better pay and some benefits. Unfortunately, Love’s boss and the airline that held his subcontract decided the new law didn’t apply to them.

This week, the workers--Love among them--went back to the Los Angeles City Council, which responded by strengthening the “living wage” ordinance. The scene afterward was like something out of a Capra movie--victory for the little guy, labor lawyers hugging blue-collar workers. The airlines and their subcontractors looked like jerks.

It would have taken a hard heart not to share Willie Love’s jubilation. But you also couldn’t help but wonder what’s going on here that it takes a fistful of laws and two trips to City Hall just to get a few thousand workers a decent day’s pay. The living-wage ordinance covers the merest fraction of the hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage workers in Los Angeles County. For maybe a few million dollars the airlines could have headed off this city ordinance in L.A.

But they didn’t, and they’re not the only resisters. Cities across the country have passed living wage laws, only to end up narrowing them to the point of inconsequence if they bother to enforce them at all. The ambivalence is as puzzling as it is shameful. A couple more bucks an hour for these workers isn’t going to break anyone.

So why haven’t the airlines--which are good to their own (mostly unionized) people--leaned on the subcontractors, discouraged low-balling, engaged in a little Public Relations 101? Surely they don’t want to be associated with situations in which even the churchgoing employees feel bitter. And what passenger takes comfort in knowing that the people who stop luggage thieves and check carry-ons for bombs are being paid as if they were flipping Big Macs?

The answer seems to be in the hard-edged capitalist fear that if mandated pay gets a foothold, it’ll spread. But this airport situation is dangerous and unfair. Outrage can spread too. It’s bad form to come off this greedy in the new economic order. Especially if you’re a multimillionaire.

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com