Broadway & 14th St
Oakland, CA 94612
USA
Last winter, workers at the Holiday Inn Express Oakland Airport told the City of Oakland that their boss was violating their rights under Measure FF, the new minimum wage law. The City investigated and issued a report identifying a number of alleged violations at the hotel – failing to pay the minimum wage for all hours, “rounding off” time-clock records to shave off time worked, requiring employees to give notice before using sick leave, taking away workers’ accrued vacation time, and other alleged violations.
Then, the following month, the City’s Planning and Building Department gave the owners of the Holiday Inn Express permission to develop a new hotel in downtown Oakland – a Hampton Inn on 11th Street in Chinatown.
“The City assessed a penalty of $5,000 against the Holiday Inn Express – then turned around and gave the hotel’s owners a permit to build a brand new hotel where they can make lots of money. So what reason would any boss have to respect our rights?” said downtown Oakland hotel housekeeper Irma Perez.
The Planning and Building Department wants to ignore the issues of job quality and the impacts of poverty-wage jobs in considering hotel development, but we’re not going to let them! Councilmembers Guillen and Kalb have introduced a City Council resolution calling on the Planning and Building Department to take job quality seriously. The resolution would also begin the process of bringing more public accountability to hotel development decisions.
The City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will consider this resolution on Tuesday, April 26th, at 1:00pm. Please attend, and call on the members of the Committee to vote YES for the resolution, for GOOD JOBS IN HOTELS and NO POVERTY-WAGE HOTELS IN OAKLAND!
Please let us know if you can be there, and if you plan to speak.
In solidarity,
UNITE HERE Local 2850