L.A. City Council Unanimous in Support of Family Healthcare for Airport Workers

May 2009

City Councilmembers Janice Hahn and Bill Rosendahl joined airline service workers, health advocates and community leaders at a May 13 press conference after the vote to draft an amendment to the L.A. Living Wage Ordinance.

On May 13th, the Los Angeles City Council took the first step toward securing healthcare for thousands of low-wage workers at LAX by voting unanimously to draft an amendment to the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance. The amendment would raise the living wage’s healthcare allotment in an effort to ensure airport workers have family healthcare coverage. This would be the first change to the healthcare allotment since the passage of the ordinance in 1997.

In advance of the Council vote, Councilmembers Janice Hahn and Bill Rosendahl joined the Reaching Higher for Healthcare Coalition at a press conference calling on City Council to vote in favor of the healthcare amendment. The Reaching Higher for Healthcare Coalition, a diverse group of healthcare advocates and community, political, labor and faith-based organizations, announced the release of a LAANE report detailing the benefits that amending the ordinance will have for Los Angeles and the cost to workers and the public when LAX workers lack employer-provided healthcare.

Airport service workers are responsible for everything from cleaning and searching airplanes to assisting passengers in wheelchairs jobs which expose them to injury and illness, including infectious diseases. Yet estimates from the newly-released LAANE study show that 5,100 LAX workers and their family members lack employer-provided healthcare. Roughly 2,000 rely on public healthcare programs; fully 3,100 people, including 700 children, have no healthcare at all.

Under the L.A. Living Wage Ordinance, covered employers must pay their workers at least $10 per hour in addition to health insurance or $11.25 without. The $1.25 health care differential was designed to encourage employers to provide workers with health care. According to a report by the City Administrative Officer, the current $1.25 healthcare allotment is insufficient to obtain health insurance. The same report found that the amendment that the City Council voted to consider will have no impact on the city’s general fund, as it applies to private sector employees at Los Angeles World Airports.

"Family healthcare for these workers will stabilize low-wage working families in a time of economic crisis and improve safety and service quality at the airport," says Carolina Briones, author of the LAANE report. "The airlines can ensure family healthcare for their contracted workers for about twenty-five cents per passenger ticket."

"As a mother, I feel like it’s my responsibility to make sure my kids can go to the doctor. As a passenger service worker greeting international travelers at LAX, I feel like it’s my responsibility to do an excellent job every day. With the Council’s action today, I’m one step closer to meeting my responsibilities at home as well as on the job," said Maria Romero, baggage handler at Tom Bradley International Terminal.

"The LAANE study estimates that taxpayers spend $3.9 million every year providing public services to LAX employees and their families," said Nancy Gomez, regional organizer for Health Access, a healthcare consumer advocacy organization. "By amending the ordinance to cover family healthcare, we will ensure that people who are employed aren’t forced to use state and county-funded public health services that are increasingly strained by people who have been recently laid off and lost their health coverage."