City Council
Report
City Council Meeting: September 10, 2024
Agenda Item: 10.A
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To: Mayor and City Council
From: Douglas Sloan, City Attorney, City Attorney's Office, Administration Subject: Introduction and First Reading of an Ordinance Amending the City’s Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance
Recommended Action
Staff Recommends that the City Council:
1. Adopt a finding of no possibility of significant effect pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) (Common Sense Exemption) of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA);
2. Introduce for first reading an ordinance amending the City’s Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance (HWPO).
Executive Summary
In September of 2019, at the recommendation of the City’s Commission on the Status of Women, Council adopted the HWPO, which includes measures intended to protect hotel room attendants and other hotel employees from sexual violence and worker exploitation, including provision of panic buttons and protection against excessive workload.
Staff presented several enforcement options, including enforcement through lawsuits, and collaborative civil citation enforcement with the Los Angeles County Department of Business and Consumer Affairs (DCBA), which is used for enforcement of the City’s minimum wage and employee benefit protections. Due to resource constraints at that time, DCBA was unable to assist with enforcement.
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In the years that followed, the City has received several complaints regarding violation of the protections against excessive workload and has sought the expert advice of DCBA on an informal basis. Given present staff capacity, DCBA is now supportive of collaborative enforcement for the workload provision. The proposed amendments would authorize civil citation enforcement as an enforcement method for the workload provision and add several complementary provisions, including clarifying and strengthening the record keeping requirement, and mandating cooperation with Cityauthorized investigators.
Discussion
Municipal Code Section 4.67.030, “Measures to provide fair compensation for workload,” was enacted to respond to concerns that housekeepers were required to work unreasonable workloads within the normal workday, resulting in less satisfactory work, lesser protection of public health, and strain on the workers. The City adopted a provision similar to ordinances that had previously been passed in Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, Emeryville, and for airport hotel workers in the City of Los Angeles.
The HWPO currently requires that room attendants who clean above the specified threshold of rooms or square footage in an 8-hour day must be paid two times their normal rate of pay for the entire day. The HWPO sets the maximum workload amount as 4,000 square feet for hotels with fewer than forty guest rooms, and 3,500 square feet for hotels with more than forty guest rooms. It also specifies that if any attendant is required to clean seven or more checkout rooms or rooms with extra beds, such as a cot or rollaway bed, the threshold is automatically reached. Thus, once an attendant cleans seven checkout rooms or rooms with extra beds, if she cleans any additional space, she must be paid the double rate for the entire day.
Due to capacity limitations when it was passed, the HWPO did not authorize civil citation enforcement of the workload provision. The only existing enforcement method is by lawsuit brought by the City or any aggrieved person. DCBA now has capacity to assist with enforcement. The proposed amendments would authorize and support civil citation enforcement, which will be carried out in collaboration with DCBA, clarify and 3 of 6
strengthen the record keeping requirements, and mandate hotel employers’ cooperation with City-authorized investigators.
A. Amendments to 4.67.030(d), Records Requirement for Fair Compensation for Workload Protections
In relevant part, SMMC 4.67.030(d) currently reads as follows:
Each hotel employer shall maintain for at least two years a record of each room attendant's name, rate of pay, pay received, rooms cleaned or total square footage cleaned for each workday, overtime hours worked for each workday, and any written consents provided pursuant to subsection (b) above[.]
While it is clear in context that a hotel employer is already required to maintain records sufficient to demonstrate compliance with the workload provision, the HWPO does not explicitly state that hotel employers must document the number of checkout rooms and rooms with extra beds that each room attendant cleans each day. Because cleaning seven such rooms automatically triggers the threshold after which attendants must be paid double their normal rate of pay for the whole day, this information is necessary to evaluate compliance. The proposed amendment would clarify that hotel employers are required to document the number of such rooms cleaned by each attendant each day and to maintain all original records used to document workload.
It is likewise clear in context that a hotel employer must maintain records in a sufficiently legible format that compliance can be determined with reasonable effort. Nonetheless, in investigating complaints under the workload provision, the City Attorney’s Office has received vague, inconsistent, and/or illegible records. The proposed amendments would clarify that in addition to maintaining all original records used to track workload, a hotel employer shall maintain a daily summary of the workload information in a legible format.
B. Addition of Law enforcement access, remedies, and penalties (1) Records and Interview Access
Unlike the minimum wage and hotel worker living wage ordinances, the HWPO does not currently have a provision mandating compliance with City-authorized investigators, including access to records and permitting interviews with workers during normal 4 of 6
business hours. Adding this provision will facilitate efficient enforcement and enable DCBA to issue citations for refusal to provide records or other information necessary to determine whether a violation has occurred.
(2) Increase in maximum daily penalty for record keeping Currently, the damages and penalties provision provides that any person who violates any provision of the HWPO is liable for actual damages suffered by any aggrieved person or for statutory damages of up to one hundred dollars per aggrieved person per day, but with a cap of $1,000 per day for failure to maintain records. This means that even where a large hotel employer completely fails to maintain the required records for tens or hundreds of employees, making it impossible to know if they’ve complied with the workload requirement, statutory damages are capped as if they had only ten employees. The amendments would increase the cap to $3,000, or the equivalent of $100 in statutory damages for thirty employees. The increased damages amount will serve as a more meaningful deterrent for large hotel employers. (3) Authorizing civil citation enforcement
Given resource constraints at the time the HWPO was passed, DCBA did not support collaborative civil citation enforcement of the workload provision. With increased capacity, and complaints received regarding the HWPO’s workload provision, DCBA now supports such enforcement. DCBA has been the primary enforcement entity for minimum wage and employee benefit violations under the City’s Minimum Wage Ordinance and Hotel Living Wage Ordinance. DCBA has experience with these types of investigations, including requesting, receiving and organizing records, entering and analyzing data obtained from such records, and issuing appropriate citations and demands for corrective action, such as payment of back wages. Collaborative civil citation enforcement will allow the City to take advantage of DCBA’s expertise to efficiently respond to complaints of violation of the workload provision.
The proposed amendments would permit civil citation enforcement by enacting a provision authorizing the issuance of administrative citations pursuant to Chapter 1.09 of the Code. This is the same authorization used in the City’s minimum wage and hotel 5 of 6
living wage laws. The amendments would make the fine amounts the same as those for violations of the minimum wage payment and minimum wage record keeping requirements. The amendments would not alter the existing authority for enforcement through civil lawsuits.
Feedback
Representatives of Unite Here Local 11 have expressed support for these amendments to improve compliance and enforcement of these worker protections. Representatives from Santa Monica Travel and Tourism were consulted and have not expressed opposition to these amendments.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, staff finds that there is a significant public interest in making these amendments to the HWPO.
Enforcement
The City Attorney’s Office Consumer Protection Unit will conduct outreach and education about these amendments. The City Attorney’s Office will continue to take complaints regarding violations of the HWPO and will forward complaints under the workload provision to DCBA for investigation and collaborative enforcement, including civil citation where appropriate.
Financial Impacts & Budget Actions
Enforcement services will be provided pursuant to existing authority and no further action by Council is necessary to authorize this allocation.
Prepared By: Romy Ganschow, Chief Deputy City Attorney
Approved Forwarded to Council
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Attachments:
A. ORD-CAO-Hotel Worker Protections
B. PowerPoint Presentation