PROTEST TO KEY ON WAGES PAID AT LAX HOTEL.

Byline: RACHEL URANGA Staff Writer

Trying to fuse their union organizing efforts with the country's immigration debate, activists plan Thursday to stage a rush-hour protest near LAX to protest what they claim are unfair wages for a mostly immigrant work force at the nearby Hilton Hotel.

Predicting it will be Los Angeles' largest-ever demonstration of civil disobedience, leaders of Unite Here said they expect to shut down the Century Boulevard corridor into Los Angeles International Airport.

State Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, say they are willing to risk arrest to draw attention to the workers' plight.

``The Hilton has one of the best incomes in this airport area. The hospitality industry is over a $21 billion industry and they make so much money yet they pay their workers 20 percent less than in other hotel areas such as downtown,'' said Chu, who will be joined by activists from We Are America, which staged a massive immigrants-rights demonstration on Wilshire Boulevard on May 1.

Experts say it's important to make the connection between immigration reform and workers' rights because immigrants are less likely to speak up about mistreatment out of fear of retaliation.

``They have elevated the issue to beyond just a group of workers in this single hotel to a broader issue of immigrant workers and the challenges facing immigrant low wages,'' said Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at University of California, Los Angeles.

Unite Here said it has been trying to unionize the hotel's 500 employees, most of them immigrants, but that an atmosphere of intimidation has thwarted their efforts.

Hotel management says it would welcome a union election and calls the union's protest tactics harmful.

``This is a disruption for the people who use Los Angeles,'' said Grant Coonley, general manager of the Hilton at the Los Angeles airport.

``We don't have a problem. If the employees want to unionize, that is fine, but you can't circumvent the system.''

Union officials say nonunion workers at hotels near the airport make 20 percent less than union workers in comparable jobs downtown.

But Coonley argues it is because airport hotels also tend to charge less for the rooms.

According to a report by San Francisco-based PKF Consulting, a strategy group specializing in the hotel industry -- hotels near the airport averaged $93.71 a night compared with $124.87 downtown from January through August. Downtown hotels had a 75 percent occupancy rate compared with the airport area's 85 percent occupancy, the study said.

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

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