The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to give preliminary approval to a package of bills changing how 12 hotels along Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport pay its workers. The farthest-reaching ordinance, approved 11-3, requires hotels to pay workers the prevailing living wage, or $10.64 per hour. Valley City Councilmen Dennis Zine and Greig Smith were among those that voted in opposition. The Council also passed separate measures requiring hotel management to keep workers on payroll for 90 days after a hotel property is sold and to pass service charges generated from banquets and other events to employees working those functions. Both passed 13-1. If passed next Wednesday by a majority of the Council, it would be the first time the city has forced a business not tied to the municipal government to pay a living wage. The package is the brainchild of the union Unite Here, which represents 3,500 local hotel workers. The measures affect only hotels near LAX.
