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The Irvine City Council is peeling back some hotel worker protections that were originally passed two years ago — but never actually enforced.
In 2022, Irvine became the first Orange County city to pass a law protecting maids from harsh working conditions and other dangers like sexual harassment.
[Read: Irvine Boosts Hotel Housekeeper Protections Following Safety Concerns From Workers]
The law requires that hotel workers be issued panic buttons in the event of harassment, with on-site security receiving those notifications so they can immediately respond.
At the Nov. 12 meeting, City Manager Oliver Chi said these safety precautions have already been implemented in every hotel in the city.
The second part of the law outlines pay requirements for hotel workers with heavy workloads, limiting the total number of rooms that employees are required to clean on their shift.
If they exceed that limit, the worker’s income is doubled for that entire shift.
The council voted 3-2 on Nov. 12 to remove the maximum workload thresholds and corresponding compensation requirements. Councilmembers Kathleen Treseder and Tammy Kim voted no.
The action removes the section of the ordinance that outlines increased payment for heavy workloads when employees clean floor space above a certain square footage.
Mayor Farrah Khan said the ordinance was “bad” from the beginning and makes it more difficult for hoteliers to run their businesses.
“I also predicted that we would be back here discussing this ordinance over and over again,” Khan said. “And it’s because it’s an ordinance that’s requesting us to do something that we as a government agency should not be doing — calculating square footages and verifying them for workload.”
“We want to make it easier for you guys,” she told the hoteliers who attended the meeting urging the council to vote yes.
Treseder said she was siding with the hotel workers.
“I was not on the council when this ordinance was originally passed, but I really was happy about it and supported it,” Treseder said. “I’m a bit disappointed that we’re looking at revoking a large part of it.”
Councilmember Mike Carroll voted against the ordinance in 2022 in addition to his vote to repeal part of the ordinance.
“My position then was the same that it is now,” Carroll said, “which was to help bridge the gap in a private way, not in a way that the government has to come down and mandate things, which is why I was against it to begin with.”
The ordinance originally passed in late 2022, but in October 2023, the city created a subcommittee — consisting of Khan and Councilmember Larry Agran — to “identify possible updates to the hotel worker regulations,” according to the presentation included with the city staff report.
During the year-long duration the subcommittee met, the workload regulations outlined in the ordinance were not enforced.
Instead, the subcommittee returned with feedback to remove the overtime pay regulations entirely.
The removal also eliminates the opportunity for hoteliers to submit waivers.
When the law passed in 2022, 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.
During the Nov. 16 meeting, Chi said 16 waivers had been submitted and each of these waivers would require an individual hearing in front of the city council.
Agran emphasized that throwing out the entire compensation package — including the waiver provisions — will prevent the incoming new city council members from enduring long meetings to consider the waivers.
“If nothing comes of this, then we’ll just be marching toward a bunch of hearings for the new council,” Agran said. “The new council will spend many many hours in fact-finding hearings as well as applying those facts to the law. I want to avoid all that.”
Agran is expected to be the city’s next mayor, based on the latest election results from the Orange County Registrar of Voters.
It also comes after Unite Here Local 11 sued the city to get access to the waivers that had been submitted.
[Read: Hotel Worker Union Sues Irvine Over Hoteliers Trying to Skirt Pay Increase]
Ada Briceño, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said the vote was disappointing and she’ll be regrouping with her team to figure out next steps in a Nov. 14 phone call.
“They decided to side with business owners and hotel owners who don’t need the kind of protections that hotel workers do.”
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
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