BY NICK DIAMANTIDES
Staff Writer
Jasleen Kohli, policy and research analyst for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, explained the plight of the working poor to an audience of about 50 at CSULB last week.
Tens of thousands of people living in the Long Beach area work hard at their full-time jobs yet often must choose between paying the rent and buying food. Because many on the other end of the socio-economic spectrum seem to be unaware of the plight of the working poor, a group of university professors and activists put together a forum entitled “Low Wage Long Beach: The Problems And Pitfalls Of A Low Wage Economy” last week. The event took place during the late afternoon of December 4 in a conference room at California State University, Long Beach. About 50 people attended.
The program included three different speakers. Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UCLA, presented a general overview of wages and work in Southern California. Kristen Monaco, CSULB professor of economics and associate director of the masters in global logistics program, talked about wages and work in the logistics industry. Jasleen Kohli, policy and research analyst for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and a research analyst for the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Communities, discussed wages and work in the hospitality industry.
Milkman noted that many people mistakenly blame the influx of immigrants for the decline of jobs paying middle-class wages in the United States. “I hear people say that the reason jobs are falling apart is because of all those immigrants coming up from Mexico,” she said. “The research that I have done suggests that that is not the case.” Milkman explained that some industries that used to pay high wages went through dramatic changes after being deregulated, and those changes included giving employers the ability to shift risks from themselves to the workers, to undermine unions, and to switch to independent contractors, subcontractors and temporary employees, thereby lowering wages and eliminating or reducing benefits. She added that after such restructuring was in place, immigrants who were more willing to take jobs with lower wages largely replaced American workers.
Monaco added that many people are wondering whether the logistics labor market can replace the thousands of lost manufacturing jobs in Southern California. Logistics employment involves the warehousing and transportation of goods. Jobs in that sector have increased dramatically in the past two decades in this region due to the increase of imports coming through the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports.
“The issue that arises when talking about employment in these industries is whether these are jobs where, if you enter the low level, you can move up and then make good money,” Monaco said. She explained that, in all the industries studied by the American Community Survey, the highest paying positions were management, business and finance, and professional occupations. According to the survey, about 30 percent of the jobs in the manufacturing sector were in the three highest paying categories. “If you look at wholesale trade, retail trade and transportation/warehousing, you find a much smaller share of the jobs are in these high-paying occupations,” Monaco said.
She said that production and transportation workers average about $12 per hour, while managers, business and finance, and professionals make $25 to $35 per hour. She emphasized that there was nearly not as much opportunity in the trade and logistics industries for advancement. Monaco added that with the downturn in the economy, the unemployment rate is steadily increasing. “We are shedding a lot of jobs,” she said, adding that Los Angeles County alone has lost 150,000 jobs in the past 12 months.
Kohli spoke next. She noted that hotel workers that have union representation tend to make more money than their non-union counterparts.
Early in her presentation, Kohli introduced a Spanish-speaking woman who has worked at the Long Beach Hilton for 13 years. Speaking through an interpreter, the 64-year-old woman (name omitted to protect her from possible repercussions) described her life and working conditions. She explained that in the course of her housekeeping duties at the hotel, she injured her back and shoulder, after which she was assigned to “light duties” such as washing laundry and cleaning bathrooms. “The pay is really poor,” she said. “After 13 years with the company, I am only making $11.24 per hour.” She added that she pays $1,000 per month to rent her apartment and barely has enough money to cover other expenses.
Kohli noted that thousands of the working poor in Southern California face similar plights. She said one of LAANE’s goals was to get more people involved in obtaining economic and environmental justice for low-income families and individuals in the Long Beach area. She explained that it was ironic that Long Beach has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to revitalize its downtown, but a few blocks away many families are living in poverty. “Poverty concentration (in Long Beach) is actually ranked sixth in the nation by the Brookings Institute,” Kohli explained.
She also stressed that almost half of low-wage workers utilize some form of public assistance. “That means taxpayers are subsidizing the low wages paid,” she said. Kohli added that LAANE would soon be publicizing a list of recommendations as to what needs to be done to increase the wages of the working poor in Long Beach. For more information about LAANE, go to www.laane.org or phone (213) 977-9400.
