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When a local ballot measure in Santa Monica draws $1 million in corporate backing and sets off an explosion of grass-roots opposition, you know there's something bigger going on. In fact, Proposition KK, the so-called living wage initiative, is viewed by partisans across the country as a battle between free market forces and a wave of labor-backed social activism.
The squabble has divided this seaside bastion of strong-minded liberal thinkers in ways that haven't been seen since the fight over rent control 20 years ago.
At stake, both sides say, is the future of the burgeoning living wage movement, which in a few years has convinced 53 cities and counties, from Baltimore to Santa Cruz, to require government contractors to pay workers a premium wage. The city and county of Los Angeles have passed living wage ordinances, and similar laws are in the works in at least 80 other locations.
In Santa Monica, labor and community activists are trying to push that concept into new territory. They argue that hotels and restaurants along a thriving two-mile stretch of coastline have benefited from public works, such as the improved pier and the Third Street Promenade, and should share the resulting wealth with workers.
Last year, they asked the City Council to set a minimum wage of $10.69 an hour for all workers in the coastal zone--marking the first time in the country that a proposed living wage has targeted private businesses with no direct ties to government funding.
National restaurant and hotel associations saw the coastal zone proposal, which remains under study, as a dangerous precedent. "What's next?" asked Sig Ortloff, general manager of Santa Monica's Le Merigot hotel. "San Antonio River Walk? The Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego? If Santa Monica could single out a geographic area, then what would stop other city councils from doing the same thing?"
Le Merigot joined a few other hotel chains with properties in Santa Monica in an expensive--and many argue, deceptive--counter campaign. Calling their coalition "Santa Monicans for a Living Wage," the hotels launched Proposition KK, which would raise the wages of about 62...