Laguna Beach hotel workers might see raises, other benefits if Measure S approved by voters

Laguna Beach sees roughly 6 million visitors every summer, and the hotel workers who serve them are hoping local voters will support them at the polls Nov. 8 by passing a measure that would boost their pay and provide employment safeguards.

If Measure S is approved, hotel owners and operators would be required to pay employees a minimum of $18 per hour and raise that minimum by $1 each year through 2026, with the wage adjusted annually to match the consumer price index for that bracket of workers.

It would also establish workload limitations, require hotel owners and operators to provide no-cost personal security devices like panic buttons and provide notice of employees’ rights. It would prohibit owners and operators from disciplining, reducing compensation, discriminating or retaliating against employees for asserting those rights.

Pacific Edge Hotel room attendant Andrea Martinez, who is represented by Unite Here Local 11, the Los Angeles-based union sponsoring the initiative, said she wants Measure S to pass because she and her colleagues want to be fairly compensated for their work.

Martinez, who spoke through a Spanish translator, said rooms at Pacific Edge are currently cleaned only after guests have checked out, rather than daily. That oftentimes means rooms are exceptionally messy, causing additional work and stress for room attendants.

She also said she felt it was important for hotel workers to have safety measures like panic buttons to protect themselves.

“The $18 is a minimum,” Martinez said. “It’s not like it is a lot. It’s something. I know some people who are making $19 or $20 an hour; $18 an hour is a good place to start.”

Measure S is one of two Laguna Beach initiatives supported by Unite Here Local 11, the second being Measure R, which would establish a hotel overlay zoning district and require voter approval for any hotel development project that does not conform to the proposed district’s requirements.

Campaign filings for those in support of the ballot measures received by the city clerk’s office at the end of September indicate roughly $26,000 had been received in contributions from the union. By comparison, the campaigns against both measures reported about $1.4 million in donations.

“[Measure S] is called the Laguna Beach hotel worker protection initiative,” Ada Briceño, a co-president for Unite Here Local 11, said. “It’s important for us to bring along our whole community — those hardworking men and women that make the Laguna Beach tourism industry successful. They’re the backbones of that industry, and the least we can do is make sure we’re protecting them with those provisions.”

Briceño said that on behalf of workers she described as some of the most vulnerable people in the community, she was excited to see the measure on the ballot. She noted that Laguna Beach hotel workers often cannot afford to live in the city where they work but that they enrich the community.

Laguna Beach City Councilman George Weiss said he supports the measure because he feels there is a lack of transparency on the part of the hotels regarding how much their employees are being paid.

Weiss said he asked hoteliers to provide that information at a meeting with representatives from the Surf & Sand Resort, Montage Laguna Beach and the Ranch at Laguna Beach, but he did not receive that information.

“I made my decision [to support Measure S] partly on the fact that I couldn’t get any information and on the fact that I think this is a group of vulnerable people, particularly women, [who] don’t have much recourse in their job,” Weiss said.

Weiss said he feels safety devices may not be necessary in Laguna Beach, but they are still important to provide security “for a vulnerable class of women that are working in conditions that might pose a threat to them or at least a threat of harassment.”

Mark Christy, a managing partner at the Ranch, said he feels the measure is a solution to a nonexistent problem.

“It proposes pay at $18 an hour for room attendants, but all of the major hotels are already paying $19 hour or more plus significant benefits,” Christy said in an email Thursday. “It’s also mandating safety devices — panic buttons — but again, every room attendant in Laguna already has access to those devices.

“I suspect you’ll have a challenge finding a single Laguna Beach room attendant that has an issue with their employment. Along with us, the people that that run the Montage, Surf & Sand, the Inn at Laguna [and so on] all treat team members like family because literally that is how they feel to us. The health and well-being of each and every associate is absolutely critical to us, and we try to do everything we can to make sure their working conditions are as good as they can be.”

Christy said he believes the measures are attempts by Unite Here Local 11 to interject itself in local Orange County politics and suspects the motivating factor for placing Measure S on the ballot has more to do with enabling the collection of more union dues.

Briceño refuted this, noting she was a hotel worker in Anaheim for many years and that though she represents the union as a whole, she and thousands of workers represented by Unite Here Local 11 are based in Orange County. Briceño said this was not a Los Angeles-born issue, noting workers had to appeal to residents to get the measure on the ballot.

Christy said he doesn’t know what the union thinks it’s accomplishing by seeking to take wages “to a level that we already exceed and mandating safety devices we already use.”

“Laguna’s hospitality operators have always been at the forefront of compensation and worker safety so this ‘one-size-fits-all’ proposal appears to be completely unnecessary here,” Christy said.

The Montage Laguna Beach did not respond to requests for comment.

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