Living Wage "Truth Teams" Hit Streets

By Teresa Rochester

It's 5:15 p.m. and a thick blanket of fog is quickly moving across the city when "Truth Team" members Patricia Hoffman and Linda Armstrong descend on the "merc" stationed outside the door of Von's on 6th Street and Wilshire Boulevard.

Hoffman, a former school board president, and Armstrong are on a mission.

Armed with large posters, flyers, maps, revocation forms, a "rap" sheet and a list of do's and don'ts, they are one of a dozen "Truth Teams" that hit the city's supermarkets late Wednesday afternoon. Their goal - to divert Santa Monica residents from signing a petition to put a living wage initiative on the November ballot.

"The only living wage we care about is this one," Hoffman says handing the "merc" -- a weather-beaten man wearing silver framed glasses and a flannel shirt -- a flyer. The flyer with a bright red stop sign and headline that reads "The Living Wage Petition is Phony" touts an alternative proposal.

Hoffman and Armstrong are members of Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, which crafted a pioneering living wage proposal being studied by the City Council that targets hotels and restaurants in the city's lucrative Coastal Zone. The "merc," as they call the paid signature gatherers, is trying to get registered voters to sign a petition to qualify a living wage ballot initiative sponsored by the targeted hotels and restaurants.

Councilman Paul Rosenstein and SMART member Joy Buckley show up just as Hoffman signs one of the petitions the man is holding.

"This is the one to increase the school funding to the national average," she says smiling.

The team members swarm around the signature gatherer, introducing themselves to the man who is slowly shrinking into a corner as the sliding doors of the market pull open. Through them strides store manager Pippa Mitchell, and she is not happy.

"We're allowed to have one group out at a time. He has permission to be here," Mitchell says sternly, glancing at the signature gatherer. "Right now you are blocking my entrance."

The "Truth Team" members protest, saying it's their constitutional right to be in front of the store and that they're not blocking the doorway. Mitchell isn't buying it. She abruptly turns on her heel and walks back into the store.

"Let me just call my main office," she says.

The signature gatherer walks over to a black shoulder bag sitting on a bench. He tells the team members he planned to leave when they arrived. The day before, team coordinators stuck to him like glue.

"Yesterday was traumatic," he says, stuffing the petitions into the bag. "It's a piece of crap. It's a profession. Such an important idea should be presented to the entire voters."

"This petition is very misleading," Rosenstein counters.

SMART's proposal would be the nation's first "living wage" law to cover businesses with no city contracts or subsidies. If approved by the council, the law would require businesses in the city's Coastal Zone with more than 50 employees to pay workers $10.69 an hour plus benefits.

In March, a group of businesses calling itself Santa Monicans for a Living Wage crafted a living wage law designed to override SMART's proposal. The proposed ballot initiative, patterned after 32 other local living wage laws across the country, covers employers who receive at least $25,000 in city contracts or subsidies to pay their workers $8.32 an hour with health benefits or $9.46 without. The petition to qualify the initiative - which closely mirrors Los Angeles County's law -- must be signed by 9,000 registered voters to get on the November ballot.

Last weekend, signature gatherers hit the streets to push for the business-sponsored ballot initiative. In their first day and a half, some 500 Santa Monica voters signed the petition, said Mark Mosher, a San Francisco consultant hired to help run the campaign.

While the signature gatherers work for Progressive Campaigns, which was hired by Santa Monicans for a Living Wage, Mosher said he is currently training some two dozen volunteers. They too are expected to hit the streets in an effort to gather the valid signatures of 9,000 registered Santa Monica voters.

SMART supporters charge the business-backed initiative is crafted to exclude the workers targeted by their groundbreaking proposal. Deploying the "Truth Teams" is the latest counter attack in the city's escalating living wage war.

"What we're mostly going to be doing is giving out flyers," Meshack tells the assembled teams. The teams include representatives from the offices of Assembly member Sheila Kuehl and State Senator Tom Hayden, Los Angeles Council member Jackie Goldberg (who pushed for Los Angeles' living wage law) and Santa Monica City Council members Kevin McKeown and Paul Rosenstein.

"We want to frustrate the 'mercs,'" Meshack says, wrapping up the pep talk before the teams hit the streets. "For the duration, you're going to stand by the 'mercs' at all times…We've found they are easily distracted and frustrated."

Behind her, former Santa Monica mayor and Santa Monicans for Renters Rights co-chair, Dennis Zane smoothly delivers flyers and his rap to shoppers as the signature gatherer stands silently nearby.

"Beware of the phony living wage," Zane tells a woman walking into the store. He recognizes her, and they hug. He hands her a flyer, continuing his spiel after they exchange greetings. "It's an initiative that tries to be a living wage."

"I want to alert you about a phony living wage," Zane tells another woman leaving the store with a cart full of groceries. The woman takes the flyer and continues on her way. Zane saunters over to join Schuetz.

"It's a confusing thing to explain," Zane says of the dueling ordinance and initiative. "But people who you talk to about it are concerned…They've got the CTA (California Teachers Association) petition, which is a good petition. We don't want to discourage Santa Monica voters from signing that."

At Albertson's other entrance, former council member Dolores Press and Rita Lowenthal don't have a signature gatherer to follow, so they quietly hand out flyers with their message to shoppers.

"We don't have a petition person," says Loewenthal. "So we're just educating."

"I'm pleased by the response," says Press. "We're getting people who are interested and polite. It feels really good to be here and helping people understand what the real living wage is about."

At Zane and Schuetz's station, a shopper and Santa Monica resident, Sherry Rector, takes a flyer from Zane. She says this is the first she's heard of the living wage.

"No one had asked me to sign a petition," says Rector. "But I think people should be making more than the minimum wage. I think people should be compensated fairly."

Hoffman walks in flushed and excited. It seems things picked up at the Von's on Wilshire and 6th.

"The store manager called the police and the police officer came and the store manager said we were blocking the door and the officer said he didn't see us blocking the way and then there was a shoplifter," Hoffman says.

"Guess what they found on the shoplifter?" she says. "She had six cans of Enfamil (baby formula). I don't know where she put them.

"I'm going to do this two days a week. A lot of people stopped and were positive."