The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education recently approved a resolution that calls for district staff to refrain from holding conferences, professional development seminars and related events at hotels involved in labor disputes with unions. “Many of the parents and guardians of our students work in the hotel industry and rely on fair working conditions and adequate healthcare for themselves and their families,” stated Board of Education President Monica Garc & #237;a at the time. “We want to give these hard-working families our full support and stand in solidarity with them as they work to negotiate a fair contract.” But those in the business community say that the board likely has ulterior motives for passing the resolution and has no place involving itself in such issues. By doing so, board members risk alienating the business community, area business leaders said. “I think it’s interesting that the school district is so willing to go to the business community when they need resources, funding and support and are very happy to be a partner at that point, but any time the board’s union allies ask them to do anything they’re happy to weigh in against business,” said Ruben Gonzalez, partner with public affairs firm Englander & Associates, which counts the Los Angeles Hotel Association among its clients. Valley Industry and Commerce Association board Chair Greg Lippe did not hide his disappointment with the school board’s decision. “LAUSD has no business mixing in non-school politics. They have enough troubles of their own to deal with that they should be focusing their attention on,” he said. “They’ve got terrible dropout rates. They’ve got their percentage of people passing the English language arts portion of the standards test very low. They’ve got the fiasco of the computerized pay system and the Belmont Learning Center issues and so on. And, frankly, they shouldn’t be meeting in hotels, anyway, at a cost of $400,000 a year.” This year alone the district has spent $185,123 on hotels, according to the Daily Breeze. In light of the concerns raised by business leaders, Garc & #237;a issued a statement specifically to the Business Journal. “We greatly value our partnerships with the business community because they share the same goal to make our public schools the best they can be, and we look forward to continuing to build more partnerships together,” she stated. Garc & #237;a also stressed, once again, that in passing the resolution, the board is attempting to support economic fairness for parents and guardians. Board members believe that economic equity for parents directly correlates with a student’s classroom performance. Gonzalez believes the resolution will ultimately harm students’ families, however. “The only people boycotts of this kind really hurt are the employees that the district and the union claim to want to help,” he said. That’s because, if meeting rooms are booked less often, staff works fewer hours, he continued. Overall, Gonzales said that he believes the board’s resolution amounts to a move to give Unite Here Local 11 a tool to publicly pressure hotels to do its bidding. Bob Scott, past VICA board chair, past Planning Commission president and current director of the Mulholland Institute, said that the board’s resolution may have a negative affect on the local economy. “I think it’s a bad standard when public agencies stake out these positions in the economic marketplace,” he said. “It certainly makes the region less competitive” He continued, “We really don’t need LAUSD tampering with our economic marketplace here in Southern California. This drives jobs out of the area, drives up the cost of everything and hurts the economy.” He believes the board is essentially attempting to damage private business interests for not being union. They’re “defaming a company by implying they’re doing something wrong for not being unionized or not paying what they view as a living wage,” he said. Gonzalez also questioned the language the board used in the resolution. “How do you define ‘labor dispute,’ for example?” he asked. “Usually, when you have a labor dispute at a hotel it’s because the workers are unionized and they’re having a contract dispute with the management. That’s what can lead to a picket line or strike.” However, because the board is targeting non-union hotels, it’s important for it to spell out whether it considers demonstrations by groups unrecognized by a hotel to be labor disputes, Gonzalez said. No one who spoke to the Business Journal said that the business community planned to retaliate against the board for passing the resolution. But it was suggested that the business community might not be so friendly the next time the board makes an overture to it. “I think the business community in general will have to seriously consider what kind of partner the school district is,” Gonzalez said.