Irvine City Council members voted to roll back some hotel worker laws meant to protect housekeepers from strenuous workloads without proper compensation — a process that began before voters elected new members to the council this past November.
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 first part of 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.
During Tuesday’s city council meeting, City Manager Oliver Chi said the city has worked with all Irvine hotels to ensure they are in compliance with this safety measure. This part of the law has not been removed and will continue to be enforced.
The second part of the law outlines pay requirements for housekeepers with heavy workloads, limiting the total number of rooms that employees are required to clean on their shifts.
If they exceed that limit, the worker’s income is doubled for that entire shift.
The council voted 3-2 to remove the maximum workload thresholds and corresponding pay requirements during a first reading on Nov. 12, but the item needed a second vote to officially go into effect.
Councilmember Kathleen Treseder and former Councilmember Tammy Kim voted “no” in November.
The second vote was delayed to allow the new council — including three newly-elected members — to also consider the item.
At nearly midnight on Tuesday evening, the new council affirmed the decision, voting 4-2 to remove the workload requirements. Treseder and Mayor Larry Agran voted “no” this time around.
A Lack of Enforcement
Although the workload protections passed in 2022, the laws were never enforced due to ongoing discussions about how to avoid financial impact to hoteliers, along with concerns about the law being burdensome.
Council members said the decision to repeal these protections was largely based on concerns from hotel owners who said they couldn’t afford the compensation requirements outlined in the law.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Clay Dines – a representative of the hotel industry – said their housekeeping costs in Irvine would double if this part of the law was enforced.
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 meeting, Chi said 16 waivers had been submitted and each of these waivers would likely require an individual hearing in front of the city council.
Hotel vs. Worker Interests
The three new council members — James Mai, Melinda Lui and William Go — all voted in support of repealing the compensation requirements.
“I’m concerned that this would break the hotel owners’ backs,” Mai said. “I don’t want to see anybody going out of business, and I don’t want to see any businesses going under in Irvine.”
Treseder said she was siding with the hotel workers.
“The hotel workers, they’re having very large workloads being imposed on them that are just about impossible for them to do,” Treseder said. “They have to make so many beds per day. They can’t do it. They end up having to work overtime. It’s not a great situation.”
Pete Hillan, spokesperson for the California Hotel & Lodging Association, said the rules would have created extra bookkeeping for hoteliers and could prevent housekeepers from taking extra shifts if they want.
“I’d like to thank the members that voted to rescind what are really onerous work rules that don’t necessarily provide the protections that they say they do,” Hillan said during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. “They’re really disguised to increase costs for hotels at the behest of organized labor.”
“The city of Irvine is doing the right thing allowing hotels to manage themselves,” he said.
Ada Briceño – co-president of Unite Here Local 11, a union representing hotel workers – expressed her “extreme” disappointment during a phone call Wednesday morning.
“They sided with hotel owners,” Briceño said. “They stripped hardworking people of a benefit to compensate them fairly for heavy workloads. In a time where Latinos are struggling, where immigrants are struggling, this is just one more issue that we have to deal with.”
Briceño said the Unite Here Local 11 team will be working alongside housekeepers to figure out their response and next steps.
“We need time to sit down and bring our workers together,” she said. “They’re at the core of the work that we do, so we need to explain to them what has just transpired and what it means to folks.”
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.