Living wage supporters vow to keep issue alive
Santa Monica voters narrowly defeated a measure that would have enacted one of the nation’s most progressive and far-reaching living wage laws.
With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Measure JJ lost by approximately 500 votes, with 12,479 ballots cast against it and 11,999 for it.
Opponents of the living wage measure said they were surprised by the results and had secretly believed the measure would win overwhelming support from the city’s voters.
“It’s a clear indication, a repudiation, of the union’s thinly veiled unionizing effort, and the voters saw through it,” said Seth Jacobsen, a spokesman for the “No on JJ” campaign. “The voters were able to see through it and they acted to protect the entire community.”
Living wage supporters were heartbroken by the results but they vowed that the fight to enact a living wage in Santa Monica would not end with last night’s election.
“I think the whole movement has been based on supporting workers’ rights,” said Vivian Rothstein, executive director of Santa Monicans for Responsible Tourism — the campaign supporting the living wage.
The Santa Monica City Council approved an ordinance last year requiring businesses near the coast that make more than $5 million in annual revenue to pay their employees between $10.50 and $12.25 an hour, depending on whether health benefits are provided.
The ordinance was appealed by many in the business community and forced onto Tuesday’s ballot as Measure JJ.
“If the initiative strategy doesn’t work, then there are other ways,”
“We are not going to let this movement end here.” — RECYCLE Santa Monica DailyPress she said
Supporters said the measure was designed to lift approximately 2,000 hotel workers out of poverty. Opponents said the measure was nothing short of an unconstitutional minimum wage law that unfairly targeted specific businesses.
During the last week, huge sums of money were poured into both campaigns, and both sides paid workers to help canvass for votes and to help get their supporters to the polls.
The Edward Thomas Company, which owns Shutters on the Beach and Casa Del Mar hotels, poured more than $110,000 over the past week into defeating the living wage measure. All told, living wage opponents this year spent well over $700,000 in their bid to kill the living wage ordinance before it could become law.
The money paid for daily direct mailers, professional canvassers and a phone bank operation based in Texas, according to campaign filing forms.
Also during the past week, the Coalition to Protect the Living Wage received $8,500 mostly from unions and organizations involved in enacting living wage laws.
SMART raised more than $170,000 during the entire campaign. To make up for the lower funding level, living wage supporters depended on hundreds of volunteers who are coordinated by a group of about 25 paid full-time workers, the majority of whom are on leave from their jobs at hotels across Los Angeles.
Santa Monica’s proposed living wage law drew national attention because it’s the first of its kind to regulate salaries paid by businesses with no direct financial ties to a municipality.
Political pundits believed Santa Monica’s ordinance could have acted as a test case for similar wage laws nationwide, and each side of the issue raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to convince voters of their views.
Jacobsen called on the city council to move forward after the election and concentrate on working more closely with the city’s business community, especially to balance a city budget with deficits that seemingly grow worse each day.
“The antagonism can’t last,” he said. “For the city to thrive and get over the hump of this huge deficit, they are going to have to work with the business community, which is going to include the restaurants and hotels.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 6, 2002. Read the original PDF.