Press Release

For Immediate Release

12/6/2006

LAX Hotel Workers To Begin Fast For A Living Wage

Fasting Workers to Stay Outside Westin LAX Hotel for Seven Days   500 to Participate in Opening Candlelight Vigil on Century Boulevard

Noon – Blessing of the Fasters

Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray and Catholic Archdiocese Bishop Gabino Zavala will lead a religious ceremony at La Placita Church near Olvera Street blessing the hotel workers before they begin their fast.

5 p.m. – Candlelight Procession along Century Boulevard

Five hundred hotel workers, community members and faith leaders will participate in a candlelight procession along Century Boulevard, beginning at the home of Margarita Uriostegui, an LAX Radisson worker who tragically died two days after the September 28 civil disobedience and in whose memory the fast is dedicated.

Eighteen hotel workers on Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport will be engaging in a seven-day water-only fast from December 6 to December 12. Workers have chosen to go without food for a week to continue their struggle for a living wage, and to honor the memory of Margarita Uriostegui, a co-worker who tragically died two days after the September 28 civil disobedience.

Hotel workers on Century Boulevard work full time, sometimes more than one job, yet many of them are still living in poverty. On November 22, the Los Angeles City Council passed a living wage ordinance for Century Boulevard hotel workers as a first step in lifting these workers out of poverty; the legislation was signed into law by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on November 27. The Century Boulevard hotels and other business groups are now seeking to repeal the law through a ballot referendum, jeopardizing the living wages of these workers and their hopes to provide a better life for their families.

Century Boulevard hotel workers earn 20% less than their counterparts in downtown L.A., and the nearby communities of Lennox, Inglewood and Hawthorne, where a large number of these workers live, suffer high rates of poverty, crime and overcrowding. One in four residents in these communities lives below the federal poverty line, a measure of extreme poverty, while more than 40% of children come from poor households. Median household income is 25% lower than in L.A. County as a whole.

for more info go to www.LivingWageFast.com

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