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Last month, the Los Angeles City Council passed a law that would provide hotel security for hotel staff and increase the minimum wage in hotels in the city. Los Angeles joins neighboring cities West Hollywood and Santa Monica in a hotel worker protection ordinance.
With a vote of 10-2, the council passed June 28 on measures for hotel workers’ workplace safety, workload, pay and retention. Council members Paul Cracker and John Lee opposed the move.
Thanks to the council’s 100,000 signatures, the bill, which is still before the law, requires hotels to be signed by Mayor Eric Garcete to provide “key fear” equipment and 60-room hotels for their employees’ personal safety. He is required to hire full-time guardians.
The rule limits the total area per square meter that an employee is allowed to clean every day.
Pete Helan, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Hotel Association, said hotel staff will see a reduction in hours due to the order in which an employee is allowed to clean every day.
“Square meters stredity and unscientific labor laws restrict our workers, often counting overtime for extra income,” he said.
The hotel owners and their service providers and partners in the downtown business district have argued that the council’s election should be held before the electorate.
No economic analysis has been done on how the changes will affect the city’s temporary housing tax, he said.
Salary
In addition to the new safety protocols, hoteliers with more than 45 rooms will have to pay wages if they spend extra hours. Hotel operators must obtain the employee’s written permission to spend more than 10 hours a day. They are free for hotels that are experiencing economic hardship.
The rule also extends the minimum wage for hotels with 150 rooms or more for hotels with 60 or more rooms. On July 1, the minimum wage in Los Angeles rose to $ 16.04 from $ 15.
Allan Ray, president of Atlas Hospital on Newport Beach, a hotel retailer, said the proclamation was a good idea and did not think any hotel owner or operator would oppose it.
“Anything you can do to protect your employees is a good thing,” says Ray.
Helan said membership of the hotel association is all about legal security and that most of its members already have the keys to fear for housekeepers.
“Most of us are meeting safety standards or we are on the way to compliance,” Hillan said.
The issue will be one of cost, though, Reay said.
Hotels are recovering from the Covide-19 epidemic and are finding it difficult to replace workers. Inflation is also a concern for operators looking to maintain the main line.
One of the requirements of the ordinance is that any hotel with 60 rooms or more must hire a full-time security guard. “It’s not a bad idea in principle,” Ray said.
“If they can afford to pay for the hotel room,” he said, “the hotels themselves would like to transfer the cost to the passengers instead of carrying the burden. .
If a hotel has less than 60 rooms, the city allows a supervisor or manager to work as a guard.
But obviously they have to go through training and everything else, Ray said.
Sarah Wiltfong, director of advocacy and policy at the Los Angeles County Chamber of Commerce or Bizfed, said the group was outraged by the council’s “short-sighted” results.
“This provision will do much to protect hotel workers, instead limit their ability to receive overtime pay, ban hotel green programs as the city becomes more sustainable, and significantly increase hotel costs, which discourages tourism and sees the city’s tax revenue as in other regions,” said Wiltfong via email. He wrote.
Wiltsfong added that Biz Fed encourages elected officials to conduct economic assessments before taking decisive action.
“It is unfortunate that they did not do so,” writes Wiltfong.
The same rules
The action taken by the city council is not new to cities in the region. Long Beach, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Glendale all have similar rules.
Santa Monica first passed the so-called “Guardian Rights Bill” in August 2019.
Like the Los Angeles Act, Santa Monica’s law requires square footage to housekeeping staff and how much space an employee can clean each day.
“If a class host is assigned to work over a square cap during their working hours, the employer must double the regular pay for the hours worked – not just the hours worked in a place above the square cap,” he said. The decree.
The West Hollywood Declaration passed 4-1 in August last year. It also requires a range of shock absorbers and a square footage based on the amount of space an employee can clean each day.
But Los Angeles law goes further than any other city because it requires cleaning rooms and linen every day.
The hotel clean-up came at a time when city residents were being asked to reduce their water consumption by up to 35 percent, the hotel association said.
“Water consumption is increasing every day when towels and sheets are cleaned,” he said.
While a guest may opt to have their room cleaned daily, this is a difficult task and is not as easy as it used to be, as hotels do not suggest it, he added.
“We have to be careful who leads this discussion,” he said. “Before the ordinance, we were allowed to ask, ‘Hey, if you stay for more than one night for the benefit of the environment, let us know if you choose not to clean your towels and sheets.’
Still, the Atlas Hospitality Ray is not surprised that the council has passed the law.
“It’s unfortunate that we have such protections, but again, anything you can do to increase the safety of your employees is always (interest),” he said.
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