Skip to main content

New Laws for 2014: Citywide Hotel Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance (Los Angeles)


Two posts in one day?   Why yes.  Have a layover in Phoenix for work and given my post earlier today on recent minimum wage increases in San Francisco am Oakland, I think this post fits right in. 


Last month, the Los Angeles City Council passed the Citywide Hotel Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance which has a broad impact across the board for hotel workers, beyond just the minimum wage rate.  As a result, let me point out a few of the big parts of the Ordinance:

  • The Ordinance applies to hotels with 150+ guest rooms within the Los Angeles city limits.  Hotels with the Airport Enterprise Hospitality Zone are included, however the Ordinance does not apply to cities like Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Glendale, Pasadena, and Long Beach.
  • The minimum wage increase is as follows:  hotels with 300+ guest rooms must pay all employees $15.37/hour by July 1, 2015; hotels with 150+ guest rooms must pay all employees $15.37/hour by July 1, 2016.  Perhaps most importantly, there is no tip credit; as a result, the minimum wage increase applies to tipped employees.
  • The Ordinance requires more than the Paid Sick Leave Law (AB 1522) which requires California employers to provide paid sick leave as of July 1, 2015 (Paid Sick Leave Blog).  The Ordinance requires an accrual of up to 96 hours of paid time off for all full-time employees with proportional accruals for part-time employees.  This is a required carryover and has a cap of at least 192 hours.  Hit the cap you say?  Well, the excess of accrued time off after hitting the cap must be paid out every 30 days at the employee's current rate of pay.
  • Unpaid time off is also provided for by the Ordinance, with an additional 80 hours for full-time employees with proportional accruals for part-time employees.
  • Use of paid time off and unpaid sick leave may now be used after six months on the job.  Time off for either paid or unpaid leave cannot be "unreasonably denied" and perhaps most importantly, employees do not need to provide advance notice before using it. 

For those wily hotel employers who want to close rooms to get under the limit...tough luck, that is not allowed.  The Ordinance specifies it is the number of rooms when the hotel opened, or on December 31, 2012, whichever is greater, which is used to calculate how the Ordinance will be applied. 


Additional information on the Ordinance can be found here:  http://www.foxrothschild.com/newspubs/newspubsArticle.aspx?id=19327353482

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Senator Bernie Sanders To Introduce Bill Requiring Large Corporations To Pay For Federal Assistance Programs

Next week, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is set to introduce legislation which would require large employers such as Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald's to fully cover the cost of food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, and other federal assistance programs that their employees receive.  Senator Sanders has stated that the goal is to force these large employers to pay their employees a living wage and cut back on the nearly $150 billion in taxpayer dollars that go toward funding these federal programs every year. As for the specifics, a 100% tax on government benefits received would be imposed on government benefits received by workers at companies with 500 or more employees.  For instance, if a Walmart employee received $500 in food stamps, Walmart would be taxed $500. To call this proposed legislation groundbreaking would be an understatement.  I would expect that Senator Sanders, an Independent that caucuses with Democrats, is going to face an uphill battle gett...
Post a Comment
Read more

San Diego Rolls Back Vaccine Mandate For City Workers

Last Tuesday, the San Diego City Council voted to do away with the vaccine mandate for city employees. The city’s vaccine mandate that was in place required city workers to get the coronavirus vaccine or risk termination.  Perhaps to this surprise of no one, the city’s policy came under fire with 14 employees being terminated and over 100 other employees resigning.  With the coronavirus subsiding, including in Southern California, the San Diego City Council took action. Now, bear in mind, the repeal of the vaccine mandate does not take place immediately. With that being said, the mandate will be repealed March 8th.  I suppose the question now is, what other cities or regions follow San Diego’s lead? For additional information:   https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2023-01-24/san-diego-repeals-controversial-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-citing-drop-in-cases-hospitalizations
Post a Comment
Read more