One of the biggest labor unions in Southern California is suing the city of Irvine, alleging city leaders are hiding records showing many of the city’s biggest hotels asked for waivers to avoid a law compelling a pay hike for workers.
The suit comes nearly two years after council members adopted the law with strong pushback from hoteliers, who claimed the pay increase based on how many rooms workers cleaned would severely impact their businesses that had just started to recover from the pandemic.
[Read: Irvine Boosts Hotel Housekeeper Protections Following Safety Concerns From Workers]
Union leaders said it was a necessary step to support hotel workers along with additional new regulations forcing hotels to provide panic buttons to their staff, who said they often faced harassment, groping and indecent exposure from hotel guests.
[Read: Housekeepers’ Hellish Hotel Horrors: Could A Proposed Irvine Ordinance Protect Maids?]
City leaders offered hoteliers a waiver if they could prove the pay increase would cause “significant adverse economic impact” to their business, such as causing bankruptcy or significantly cutting hotel workers hours.
Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers in Orange County, alleges that many of the city’s largest hotels like the Hilton and Hyatt applied for such waivers in a lawsuit filed in June.
City officials say no waivers have been granted yet.
To read a copy of the suit, click here.
When union officials asked for information on which hotels had applied for or received such a waiver, city staff denied the request, saying it would violate trade secrets for the companies involved – instead releasing other records related to the applications, according to the lawsuit.
When Unite Here asked for the city to review their decision, they said they would, and did not reply for another year.
Now, the union is suing for the records.
“The hotel employers who have applied for waivers to escape the duties and requirements of the Ordinance voluntarily submitted the records sought … in order to secure the financial benefit of being exempted from the Ordinance’s worker protections,” Unite Here’s lawyers wrote.
Oliver Chi, Irvine’s city manager, said there were 19 hotels that applied for a waiver, but none had received one yet , noting that the panic buttons and other safety measures of the law had all been implemented citywide.
“At this point, no waiver has been granted, and the safety protocols related to the hotel worker ordinance have been implemented at all hotels,” Chi said in an interview.
Chi said the Unite Here failed to explain why those records needed to be made public, but said a “quick and amicable” resolution would be on its way.
He also noted the city was not currently enforcing the rule requiring hotels pay employees more for cleaning more rooms because it was currently being reviewed by the city, with some discussions about removing the option for a waiver altogether.
Right now, the issue is being discussed behind closed doors in a subcommittee made up of Mayor Farrah Khan and Councilman Larry Agran.
“We have not implemented the rule pending the city council subcommittee working through the issue,” Chi said. “We still haven’t resolved those issues at this point.”
Ada Briceño, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said the information should all be made public in a statement to Voice of OC on Tuesday.
“If virtually every hotel in Irvine is going to take the position that they should be exempt from the law’s requirements to protect their employees, workers have a right to know what these companies are claiming,” Briceño said. “What is the city trying to hide?”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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