Dive Brief:
- Hospitality union Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers in Southern California and Arizona, filed an initiative in Santa Monica that would require hotels to pay workers a minimum of $30 an hour, the union announced Wednesday. The proposed law, if approved, would create the highest minimum wage in the country.
- Southern California municipalities have enacted a wave of ordinances in recent years to improve working conditions for hotel workers, and others, including Los Angeles, have introduced legislation to raise hospitality workers’ wages.
- Cost of living is a primary issue for Unite Here Local 11, which is also organizing multiple waves of strikes across the region. Union workers in Santa Monica say their current wages make it difficult to live near their place of work.
Dive Insight:
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a single mother would need to make over $40 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the Los Angeles area. Similarly, a Unite Here Local 11 survey of its members found that 53% had moved in the past five years or would move in the near future due to housing costs.
“I have to work two jobs to be able to live in Santa Monica. Some coworkers live all the way out in Palmdale, Lancaster, San Bernardino or Riverside,” said Salvador Garcia, a hotel worker who is serving as one of the official proponents of the initiative, in a statement. “I signed onto this initiative so that more of us would have the opportunity to live nearby.”
Of the workers serving as proponents for the initiative, all three live and vote in Santa Monica. Unite Here Local 11 shared that one works at the Beverly Hilton, another at Regent Santa Monica (until recently known as the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel), and another at the Hilton Santa Monica.
Santa Monica hotels that have held strikes in recent weeks include Hampton Inn & Suites Santa Monica and the Fairmont Miramar, where Council member Caroline Torosis stopped by the picket line to lend support.
In April, several Los Angeles City Council members introduced a motion to raise the minimum wage for the city’s hospitality and tourism workers to $25 an hour. Nearby, in 2022, West Hollywood enacted a law ensuring that its hotel workers would make a minimum of $17.64 per hour. Long Beach is also considering legislation that would raise wages for workers in the hotel industry.
In 2019, Santa Monica City Council passed its Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance. The law provides hotel housekeepers with safety protections to guard against sexual assault and threatening behavior from guests, sets daily workload maximums and requires hotels offer training on rights and safety. Though it requires overtime in certain instances, it does not set a minimum wage.
The idea of wage increases has not been universally loved. When the Los Angeles City Council brought forth its $25 per hour wage proposal, Laura Lee Blake, president and CEO of AAHOA, said: “Increasing the minimum wage would be a significant hardship for our family-owned businesses who care deeply about their employees. This $25 minimum wage proposal is a lose-lose situation for all involved.”
Wages continue to be a sticking point in bargaining amid the ongoing hotel strikes in the region. After both sides met on Tuesday, the Coordinated Bargaining Group, which represents 44 Los Angeles and Orange County hotels, released a statement saying Unite Here Local 11 had rejected its offer to increase wages by $2 an hour immediately after its wage proposal’s ratification and another $1 per hour in 2024.
“We made an improved wage offer today but Local 11 summarily rejected it,” Keith Grossman, spokesperson for the CBG, said. “The Union made no counteroffer.” The group did not disclose other terms in the proposal. Unite Here released a statement saying the group’s proposal did not, in fact, include wage increases.
