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I hate to be the one to tell you, but... being the "houseman" at a hotel is NOT a long-term career move! Having children when you're only making that much is also NOT a good career move. Kind of takes time and money away from learning a profession or trade.
If you work any low-paying job intended for new immigrants to take while they get their bearings, you most likely will not have a very high ladder in front of you. Most often you'll be lucky to get a step-stool.
The hotel industry is what it is. If you don't like it, don't have kids you can't really afford, and use your time and money wisely, instead of remaining in the "same old same old."
You have nobody to blame but yourself.
Thanks again for both of these excellent articles. Let's ask Jason why it is that many of us had similar jobs in the late 60's and early 70s, and actually made more than 10$ an hour? Gas was 40 cents, a pad in the Shore around 300/month, a decent car cost 1000$, and a room in such Hotels fetched 15 to 20 bucks? 4 Decades later, these poor folks make a miserable 10 $ ? Disgusting !! When any business squeezes the little guy so hard, and so routinely, and so blatantly, a lot of us do our best to never patronize them, or send them business.
Also, these trickle down, ''synergies'' promised by all of these 'catylists' remain laughable at best. Most agree, City Hall and certain power players , Port Officials, and schmoozers now have nice places to go for lunch or for week day meetings. But insiders know, half of them go home to Huntington Beach, or Orange County or places similar after work, and rarely retire even close to the town they fouled up. The goal of this revitalization has always seemed primarily to the benefit of people working downtown who are way too overpayed and accustomed to nice, pretty things.
The fact that the best anchor they could attract was Walmart, well, we sure spent our hard Millions to attract that lease !! And guess what? They would have shown up anyway to serve the working poor anyway? Absent all the vacant fluff !!
We took a huge turn towards Old Oakland by betting all of our chips on Port Expansion
So if the Port, is the ENGINE, downtown is the crankcase, and the oil looks pretty dirty. And the sound of the engine annoys most of the residents , the smell of the exhaust is making our eyes blink and itch, the tailpipe stinks, and most know that the average resident would be just fine with a lot less engine, far better smog controls, quieter mufflers
We should have taken a half step toward a modest Port, and a Half step towards revitalizing Beach tourism, waves, surfing and a lot more of the Sunset, Surfside, or Huntington Beach charm, and flair. We would have saved most of this money because private investment would have followed the common sense of making Long Beach, an actual Beach again. Not Port City. , or New' Newark ' (as in New Jersey)California. At least the smell of the ocean might return a bit, to balance out the diesel fumes.
So this 750 Million revitalization makes as much sense to some of us, as this latest 'Port MUST Double' fallacy, combined with all of the self serving, largely disingenous commercials, and the ' we are just great !'' mailings. It is a wake up call that the inmates are running the asylum.. The Port wants to run, and own too much of this town to some extent, ever so subtly. . And ruin plenty of it too..
We'd be smart to say, enough growth for now, cut the pollution at least in half first. And while you are in purgatory for handing us the Worst Air In America, miserable traffic, soot on our homes all the way into Los Alamitos, and various health risks, fund a total Beach and Wetlands Restoration for a period of years to get out of the penalty box.
Getting rid of much of the Breakwater would be a boon to the area. Could you imagine surf shops popping back up downtown? Or around Belmont Pier? Hoards of beach goers flocking towards the Ocean as they do elsewhere? All of that tax revenue and actual business synergy?
But hey, it makes too much sense to invest in our Natural Resources, and benefit from being good stewards of them?? Taking an actual step in a Green direction is just too scary for some, with vested special interests.
Another synergy might be having all those healthy, energetic young folks as a great source of signatures, to help Organize, Unionize and better protect those embarrassingly underpaid people downtown. The extent of the exploitation is as disgusting as the naive, self serving elitism of the Jason's, and Long Beach Residents of this world. Or others living in their own private Idaho..
You allege that the “Two Cities” report is “light on incendiary language”. I would agree. The language of the report is, indeed, rather scholarly overall.
But the language of a report need not be “incendiary” to be divisive or fallacious. And a report can be “heavy on research” and still lack a good deal of accuracy, completeness and intellectual honesty.
This document purports to be the first systematic evaluation of the city’s substantial investment in tourism in the form of subsidies, complex land deals, loans, and direct expenditures.
Should we consider the inclusion of only that information that tends to support a pre-determined conclusion and the exclusion of information that does not to be particularly “systematic”?
This document claims to represent a compelling examination of Long Beach’s record of including segments of the population that live beyond the Ocean Boulevard business community in efforts toward opening more boutique hotels and attracting higher-end visitors.
Can an examination that intentionally excludes information that refutes its contentions or mitigates its claims be particularly “compelling”?
This report claims that its conclusions provide a basis upon which to generate inclusive conversations.
Can conversations addressing these challenges be particularly “inclusive” when the information that formed the conclusions for this report was highly selective and presented in a severely biased manner?
In my opinion, the government representatives that did this quite literally sold us a bill of goods. But government representatives that are prone to squandering tax dollars as a matter of political axiom are not likely to be particularly trustworthy on this score in the first place, and we, the electorate, should have remembered that when we were electing them.
As a self-governed people in a free society it’s our *duty* to be smarter than this…to have a better understanding of basic market economics…and to only elect representatives that do so as well, so that they will not squander our tax dollars in the many ways that they so often do.
I’m all for people - all people, in all fields - receiving the very best wages and working conditions they can negotiate with their employer. I’m all for people engaging in such negotiations either individually or collectively, whichever they truly and *freely* choose.
I’m decidedly *not* for government injecting more artificialities into the labor market than already rightly exist (those would be the thousands of laws and court decisions already on the books that protect all workers, including those in our local hospitality industry).
We have a minimum wage law in this State. LAANE’s “average hotel worker” earns more than that and Mr. Trinidad earns still more than that (assuming he actually said, or meant, $10.04 per *hour* rather than $10.04 per *year*).
No one forced Mr. Trinidad to accept his job at the Hilton for the wages they offered at the time. No one prevents him from asking the Hilton for a raise and no one forces him to remain at the Hilton should it decline and should he feel he can make more money elsewhere.
If enough good employees leave the Hilton for better wages and the Hilton can’t readily replace those workers due to the wages they are offering; guess what…the Hilton’s overall quality of service to its customers will suffer and, likewise it’s business will suffer and then guess what…the Hilton will increase the wages that it offers so as to attract, and retain, higher quality help.
This is the way the labor market in a free and democratic society is designed to work and it’s the way it does work when government agrees to remain on its side of the line that rightly exists between public and private interaction.
You mention that the report calls for a City Audit on this matter. Perhaps one is, indeed, necessary, but Ms. Doud and her excellent staff conduct thorough formal City Audits for us routinely and very few, if any, of her recommendations are ever followed.
This sad truth is yet another example of our lackadaisical attitude concerning City government overall. On the one hand we elect a competent City Auditor to help to monitor government activity and expenditures on our behalf and, on the other hand, we elect other officials that, for the most part, ignore the Auditor’s various recommendations and continue doing what they have proven that they do so well…spending the public’s funds in whatever way they see fit, whether it makes any sound economic sense or not.
Should a formal City Audit on this matter ever be conducted, I’m not particularly confident that it will help solve anything because we consistently refuse to hold our elected and appointed officials truly accountable for the results.
Regardless, Jason is right. Determine how much money you want to make and choose the appropriate career. And certainly do not have children until you have created the lifestyle you want for yourself and your children. Having two kids and working as a hotel maid and then complaining about your quality of life is ridiculous.
Also, I've never heard the City of Long Beach (or any other City) suggest that hotel jobs will pay the same as manufacturing jobs. What they DID say was that the Tourism industry would generate tax revenues (sales taxes, bed taxes, etc.)
Also, I don't understand why this is a "union" issue. It is my understanding that the non-union hotels pay the same wages as the union hotels. If the Hilton was unionized, the workers would not receive any more compensation. The overall hotel market determines how much they are paid.
When I'm presented with evidence that an ever increasing number of people believe that government is the answer to all of our ills (from subsidizing private hotels with public funds to bolster a sagging tourism sector to "reviewing policy options" to artificially increase low wages above what the law mandates) I too feel sad.
When advocacy groups like LAANE and The Coalition produce so-called studies like “Two Cities” that present information in a blatantly one-sided and clearly intellectually dishonest manner and than mischaracterize such a horribly skewed document as a “systematic evaluation”, a “compelling examination” and allege that its (extremely exclusive) conclusions can form the basis for “inclusive conversations, I too feel sad.
When advocacy groups like LAANE and The Coalition facilitate, host and orchestrate public gatherings to market their views and agendas and mischaracterize such gatherings as “Community Town Halls” in blatant attempts to lend greater legitimacy to their cause, I too feel sad.
When private sector employees, whether in our hospitality sector or any other, forget that by virtue of their lawful presence in this greatest of nations, they have more freedom in their little finger then many workers elsewhere in the world have or will ever have and that, included in this amazing freedom, are: the right to aspire to work wherever, for whomever and doing whatever they like; to freely negotiate with a prospective employer for wages and working conditions; to avail themselves of many opportunities to increase their skill and education levels; and to deprive an employer of their toil if another employer will offer better wages and working conditions…when our private sector employees forget all of these truths, I too am sad.
I believe, and strongly, that the entire basis of this current discussion concerning some in our hospitality sector is envy, plain and simple. Some employees agree to work for some employers under certain lawful wages and working conditions. Then, after having freely engaged in such agreements, some of these employees look about them; observe that others are making more than they are and feel envy (“Someone else has more than I so I am entitled to have more too”) rather than motivation (“Someone else is earning more than I am so I’m going to do whatever I need to do to be able to earn more too”).
This difference…envy v. motivation…entitlement v. earning…is the basic difference between liberals and conservatives. It defines the difference between a liberal mindset of “government should be all things to all people” and a conservative mentality of “government should stay out of the way because individuals have the freedom…the liberty…to strive and succeed, or to not strive and fail, on their own”.
LAANE and the Coalition’s “average hospitality worker” is earning well above minimum wage. For some of these this is proving to not be enough. Fine, they should negotiate collectively or individually to get more and if their negotiations fail then they should seek employment elsewhere. If they would do this, everybody will win because:
1. They’ll find another employer willing to pay them more (Such employers exist, LAANE said so after all)
2. The employer hires new employees content with the lawful wages they are paying (Our plunging employment numbers make this certain) and,
3. The electorate in Long Beach enjoys (for a change) a City Hall that properly limits itself…that refuses to step in “explore policy options” for private employers that are otherwise operating in a lawful manner
If enough good employees leave a hotel because their pay is not sufficient, the hotel will then have predominantly poor employees and the quality of their service will likewise suffer. This will cause business to drop off and, when that happens, the hotel will increase their wages to attract better employees to improve the quality of their service.
This is how challenges such as these are supposed to be addressed and resolved in a Representative Republic. This approach is not new, it is not mean-spirited, it is not “sad” and it is not difficult to apply. This approach, in a word “works” and it does so by elevating individual freedom and liberty and keeping government as small and non-intrusive as possible.
This, Dave, is the truth; although more and more of us seem to have forgotten it.
And for that, Dave, I too feel exceptionally sad. But unlike you, I know precisely why.
I feel sad because we, in the U.S., in California and in Long Beach have gone so far down the road toward intrusive government and socialism and away from limited government, freedom and invidividual liberty that I fear we may never be able to reverse course and return to the ideals upon which this great nation was founded.
That's why I'm sad, Dave.
The correct response when asked for these subsidies should have been a polite but firm, “sorry, but no”. Had that occurred we may or may not have enjoyed the same level of hotel development in the area that we did but whatever development did occur would have been far more self-sustainable and not dependant, to any degree, on still more taxpayer-funded subsidies to assure continued viability now that the economy has tanked.
That would have been the “ideal”. But what actually happened is, as you put it “where we live”. So let’s look at that latter place for a moment.
“Where we live” there exists a downtown with several major name hotels that, but for these subsidies, would likely not exist…certainly not as many as we are operating currently. So these hotels have been built, and they are operating, and they are providing hundreds of hospitality sector jobs that would not otherwise exist.
I happen to believe that these hundreds of jobs, that, again, would likely not have existed but for those taxpayer-funded subsidies, coupled with the bed taxes we collect and the ripple-effect benefit they provide to other aspects of our local economy (vendors, etc) are an ample return on our to-date investment.
I know this may amaze you and others, Dave, but our elected Council knew very well what the prevailing wages were for hospitality workers when these hotels were built. They knew, or reasonably should have known, that there is just no rational way that a low pay hospitality sector job is going to replace a high pay aerospace or defense industry job, one-for-one.
If they sold the electorate a bill of goods in this area and inflated the economic benefit of hospitality sector jobs to justify the expenditure of our public funds then shame on them for misleading us, and shame on us for allowing them to do so.
But that was then, this is now…”where we live”.
The answer to the concern about these subsidies now…where we live…is not to inject additional artificialities into the equation (by “exploring policy options” - flowery language for “dictate terms”) but to accept the benefit of the bed taxes we currently collect and the hundreds of hospitality sector jobs that otherwise would not exist and otherwise let the market solve this.
As I mentioned before, Dave, we, the voters, need to be smarter than this. We need to keep closer tabs on what our elected officials are up to; we need to understand better about market economics and we need to require that our elected representatives understand better as well and that they then behave accordingly.
This is important, Dave, so it bears emphasizing: This situation exists, not because some of our hospitality sector employees make less than some others, but because we, through our elected Council, meddled in what should have been the private development of these hotels.
It’s fitting and proper to offer incentives to private developers when doing so will ultimately benefit the community at large, but incentives (waiving fees and discounting rates, etc) are one thing and funneling millions of public dollars to such developers is quite another. Had we not done that then, we would be in an overall better place than where we are now, “where we live”.
Government meddling is the challenge. The answer, then, is not still more government meddling, which is what LAANE and The Coalition are hoping for.
So what *is* the answer?
Here’s one non-politically correct answer: The first step to correcting this is to stop these subsidies immediately. These hotels have enjoyed a lot of taxpayer-funded help. That happened and we can’t un-ring that bell. We enjoy some bed taxes and some ripple benefits for area vendors and a lot of jobs that we otherwise would not have had because of it.
So be it.
Now these hotels need to sink or swim on their own. If they sink, it’s either because there was not a sufficient market here for their product or because they developed a flawed business model for this area, or both, and government has no business injecting artificialities (such as additional public funds derived from taxpayers) that will otherwise sustain, or further burden, them.
If they swim, we all benefit because their success benefits all of us. Through their success they pay us more bed taxes and they support more area vendors and they can afford to pay higher salaries to their low-skilled workers, many of whom are our neighbors. But these hotels must be required to swim on their own market-economic merits, not because we keep throwing public funds at them.
These funds belong to us, the electorate, Dave, not to the Council and not to these hotels. It is not their money to squander. It is our money and we have a right to expect that when it is bestowed, it not be bestowed lavishly. And when it is invested, it be invested wisely, with considerable circumspection and not ever used for speculation.
We entrust these funds to elected officials with the expectation that they will not betray that trust.
When and if they do betray that trust, we must remove them. Period. If we do not remove them there is neither incentive for those who remain to become better stewards of our public funds nor for those who are put in their place to perform any better than did their predecessors.
The path of responsible self-government may indeed be a meandering one. But it is a path that *always* leads right back to our own individual front doors…right ”where we live”.
Do you feel the same way about the subsidies to the Seafest, the Aquarium, sand movement on the beach, the farmers market at marine stadium, Legends bar, etc? These are all on-going or recently completed subsidies approved by this sitting Council, Mayor and City management. These aren't something that happened years ago.
Nobody is arguing with you that the funds belong to the electorate except the folks that got elected. It is a continuing issue of irresponsibility and self-interest that not for the help of TDW, would not be known to the electorate you frequently shame for their past voting record. Mistakes like this need to continually be pointed out in order to draw attention to whether the city learned from its repeated mistakes.
When such tests are not sufficiently adhered to we lose effective control of our public treasury and when that happens our liberty is likewise eroded.
I, too, applaud TDW and other local news, comment and information sites for bringing stories like this to light. It’s through articles like these that Dave W. and others report on information pertinent to our community and sometimes offer opinions about them. Others can then offer other, sometimes opposing, opinions on the topic and bring out additional pertinent facts. Through the whole process, assuming everyone remains intellectually honest, public awareness is elevated and the arena of ideas remains fresh, active and compelling.
I feel a column coming on…watch for it.
The twosome of Gary Delong and Suja Lowenthal effectively control a comfortable majority of the Council. That Council is not going to work of the betterment of all of Long Beach when they get their marching orders from the Chamber. And the traditionally worker oriented 1st District may now fall to Robert Garcia, long time Republican miraculously turned last minute "Democrat" and backed by the Chamber. Those who want the largest possible pool of low income, low education job seekers in Long Beach may gain an even more comfortable Council majority.
Does the Chamber take the position that it wants it's low income, low education workers to come from somewhere else? I note that I have seen the Chamber take the position that the Port of LB is terrific for this city because the workers there DO largely come from Long Beach. Seems contradictory to your conclusions.