Local business leaders were reeling last week after they got a closer look at the last-minute deal that was reached to avert a ballot showdown over extending L.A’s living wage ordinance to a dozen airport hotels.

Under the deal announced Jan. 31 by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the City Council rescinded its original living wage ordinance that had upset hotels and prompted the business community to place a referendum on the ballot. City leaders then promised to replace it with a new living wage ordinance containing several provisions designed to allay the concerns of the hotels and the business community – chiefly that there would be no further expansion of the living wage.

But as word spread late last week of the language being considered for the revised ordinance, business leaders were dismayed to learn that the “quarantine” of the living wage they had sought was far from ironclad. Without such a quarantine, they fear the quick spread of the living wage to businesses throughout the city.

What’s more, some of the promised benefits, such as a special economic zone around the airport highlighted by a mini-convention center, were vague and undefined.

About the only thing that was certain: unless the hotels could obtain a judicial injunction, later this year they would have to begin paying their workers the living wage of $9.39 an hour if they pay benefits or $10.64 an hour if they don’t.

“VICA is trying to find the carrot at the end of this stick,” said Brendan Huffman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association.

Huffman and other business leaders were left confused by the rapid turn of events last week. One business negotiator said he left the negotiating table on Tuesday night believing business had secured a quarantine, only to find out five minutes before the deal was announced that “the language did not reflect the entirety of what we agreed to.”

But it appears that business’ hand may have been weakened by the results of two polls on the issue conducted in mid-January. One, commissioned and loudly trumpeted by labor, showed 74 percent support for the living wage ordinance.

The other, commissioned by the hotels, was not made public, and there were differing comments on the results. Publicly, hotel consultant Harvey Englander said “our poll did not show that we could not win the campaign.” But privately, one business leader who said he had seen the poll said the results were not favorable for the hotels and that a lot of effort would have to be made to switch many voters’ views.

“The poll results really took away a lot of the leverage that the hotels thought they had gained by placing the referendum on the ballot,” this business leader said. “It meant that when they were at the negotiating table, they didn’t have much to bargain with, and the Council folks knew this.”

Normally, only businesses that do business directly with the city are subject to the living wage. But in passing the ordinance, the pro-union City Council reasoned that the 12 hotels along Century Boulevard must pay their workers the higher wage because they are near a city asset, the Los Angeles International Airport. Business groups fear that logic could spread, forcing even more businesses to pay higher wages.

Hotel owners

Certainly, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the sponsor of the living wage ordinance, acted on the assumption that a referendum was a loser for business. At a Jan. 19 breakfast sponsored by the Current Affairs Forum, she and hotel lobbyist George Kieffer sparred over the issue. Kieffer repeatedly sought some sign of compromise; Hahn wouldn’t budge. “You’re trying to get a deal because you know if you go to the people, you’re going to lose big time,” she said.