An attempt by a pair of hotel industry groups to prevent a $15.37 per hour minimum wage for hotel workers in Los Angeles from taking effect this summer was rejected by a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte Jr. on Wednesday afternoon denied the request by the American Hotel and Lodging Association and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association for an injunction blocking the city’s hotel wage ordinance while the groups’ lawsuit is pending.
The ordinance, approved by the City Council in October, raises the minimum wage to $15.37 an hour for workers at Los Angeles hotels with 300 or more rooms, starting July 1. For hotels with at least 150 rooms, the higher wage will take effect July 1, 2016.
Under the ordinance, hotel employers that have collective bargaining agreements with their workers would be exempt from the $15.37-per-hour minimum wage. The hotel industry groups’ lawsuit contends the ordinance unfairly gives unions leverage during bargaining and oversteps federal laws governing collective bargaining and labor relationships.
But Birotte wrote in his ruling that the city’s wage law “neither encourages nor discourages collective bargaining” and “operates simply as part of the backdrop” for labor talks.
Birotte said that “hotel employers have a meaningful choice” between paying the $15.37 minimum wage and “entering into collective bargaining agreements.”
He added the law “may have rejiggered the economic calculus,” but that does not mean federal law pre-empts the city’s wage ordinance.
Katherine Lugar, president of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, said that while the group respects the judge’s ruling, it is still “concerned that our member hotels will suffer irreparable harm.”
The ordinance “improperly disrupts the balance of economic power between unions and employers that is intended by the United States Congress,” and “creates a powerful and unprecedented bargaining tool for labor …,” Lugar said.
Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the City Attorney’s Office, said the city is “pleased with the court’s decision … which allows this important minimum wage law to go into effect.”
— City News Service