Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers’ Rights Committee 62719

So, good afternoon.

Thank you all for being here.

Today is Thursday, June 27th, 2019, and the Special Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 12.02.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Committee.

Thank you so much for being here, Councilmember Shamoson-Watt.

Very excited to have you, and thank you for your announcement as well in support of the legislation.

Today we have four items on the agenda.

All of these items are related to the Hotel Worker Protection Legislation.

These are Council Bills 119554, 119555, 119556, and 119557. Really happy to see a full audience here today.

As many of you know, we have been having ongoing conversations over the last two or three months.

I want to thank the folks from the hotel managers who came and presented at the table, the folks from the hotel workers who presented at the table.

people who've come and hosted events at the Seattle Library to talk about some of their experiences as well.

So thank you for doing that.

And just as a reminder, we'll talk about this a little bit later.

We will have two, at least two other opportunities for folks to provide public testimony today or throughout the next few weeks.

And one of those is coming up on July 2nd at 530 here in council chambers.

So we'll talk a little bit more about that before the end of the meeting.

Those are the four items on the agenda and Council Member Sawant, if I could indulge you, if there's no objection, I will approve today's agenda.

Okay, no objection?

Great.

So why don't at this time before we get into the meat of the details in the legislation, why don't we go forward with public comment.

If you have signed up to testify, we have two minutes for each person.

Please note that we do have a lot of folks signed up.

And we hope that you can stick to the two-minute script, recognizing that there will be many more opportunities to come and testify in the next three or four weeks here.

So moving on to public comment, the first person that we have to testify is Shisa Damji from Hotel Nexus.

I'm sorry about your name pronunciation.

Please help me.

Right.

Followed by Kevin Norris from Parker Smith Peak.

And welcome, Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you for being here and for being a co-sponsor.

Of course.

Welcome.

And please correct my name pronunciation.

You were correct.

OK.

Can I start?

My name is Shiza Damji.

For over 40 years, my family has owned the Hotel Nexus in Northgate.

We are a small business, and I sit on the Mayor's Small Business Advisory Council.

Seattle hoteliers, including myself, have supported progressive legislation such as a minimum wage increase, paid family leave, and panic buttons for hotel employees.

As an immigrant business owner, I am fully vested in making this city and region a vibrant community for all.

However, the medical access portion of the proposed HEHS legislation is the tolling of the death knell for family and locally owned businesses in the City of Seattle.

As we came out of the Great Recession, our hotel revenues began to rise to pre-recession levels.

However, every dollar of that increase has gone towards increased labor costs and other expenses.

Every single dollar.

In 2019, however, revenues are down again.

Seattle hotels overall are down double digits.

Our hotel is down over 15% in revenues this year, but the impact to our bottom line is considerably higher because although our revenues have gone down, our labor and other expenses continue to rise substantially.

The full cost of this proposed bill to the hotel nexus would be $850,000 per year.

This is not an amount we can afford.

The cost increased to an average mid-scale 150-room hotel in Seattle will be $500,000 per year.

This will be the straw that broke the camel's back.

I know the cost of health insurance is excessive, but the solution is to work with the state to offer more affordable options than a public option.

The solution is not to impose a completely arbitrary and capricious dollar requirement on only one industry.

This isn't going to solve the problem of health care costs.

The Hotel Nexus and other Seattle hotels were already exceeding the ACA Obamacare requirements, and we will continue to do so without this legislation, continuing to offer gold standard health care to our employees.

The medical access bill targets only one industry and requires payment of health care based on exorbitant specific dollar amounts without regard to income or employee contribution.

I have tried to, over the last few years, to remain positive and to work towards a Seattle that is open to economic development and job creation.

This proposed legislation does exactly the opposite.

Oh, thank you.

You were summarizing as I interrupted you.

Thank you for your testimony.

Kevin Norris, followed by Leah Lever from Hyatt.

Hi.

Welcome, Kevin.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilpeople.

My name is Kevin Norris.

I'm a health insurance consultant in the Seattle area with Parker, Smith & Feek.

We're a locally owned firm that's been here since 1937. I'm speaking with regards to the city's proposed ordinance on the medical access provisions.

My colleagues and I represent a number of hotel and restaurant clients in this area in their pursuit to purchase and provide the best level of benefits to their employees.

We consider both the employees and the employers, our clients, in pursuit of helping with the cost and the complexity of benefit programs.

Our clients demonstrate year after year their commitment to providing their employees with attractive and competitive benefit packages, particularly in this competitive landscape of the employer and the labor market.

The provisions of the Medical Access Bill that require hotel employers to pay significant sums of money on a gross dollar basis to ensure their employees and their dependents does not seem to have much basis in the reality of the marketplace in which we work.

It ignores how underwriting takes place.

For employers of the size affected by this bill, their premiums are set by the level of the benefits as well as the health status of their employees reflected in their claims experience.

The price of coverage does not necessarily equal the quality of the coverage.

It seems to be a blunt hammer approach in terms of setting the requirement for employer contribution towards the cost of coverage.

The ACA under the Obama administration determined or created a actual guidelines based upon metallic tiers to assign quality of coverage for different levels of benefits.

Placing an arbitrary value does not properly measure the real value of this coverage.

I'm interested in understanding how the monthly premium amounts were derived, but looking at several of our hotel industry clients, these premium amounts are in excess of 100 percent of the full cost of coverage for all enrollment tiers, employee and dependent.

We do not see any other vertical or industry vertical in which employees have no cost sharing.

Even most public entities require some premium sharing.

Based upon the proposed employer contribution levels, these employers would not be in a position to continue the current levels of benefits that they offer.

They would have to reduce their benefit levels if not take more drastic steps to maintain these benefits.

And we're happy to take your public comment as well.

I know I had to rush you there at the end.

Also, we will be following up.

I did hear some suggestions around the calculation.

interesting conversation to be had about individual market versus large group market.

So happy to follow up on that and thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Yes.

The next person that we have is Leah Laver followed by Anna Boone.

Hi, Leah.

Thank you.

It's Leah LaVar, and I'm with Human Resources.

I represent seven hotels in the area.

Thank you for hearing us.

The first thing I'd like to say is that the health and safety of our teams is of the utmost importance to me and to us.

I'm here to ask, I've personally reviewed the drafts, and they're vastly different than what was initially shared.

We're asking for additional time to review and provide feedback on these initiatives.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And that is a good reminder for me to remind folks There was some confusion.

I think some folks thought that where was a vote today.

This is not scheduled for a vote today So we do have some time as we mentioned about five weeks or so five to six weeks Hi, Anna.

Good to see you back.

Yes.

Thank you for having me.

I'm Anna Boone.

I'm here on behalf of the Seattle Hotel Association.

We represent hotel operators throughout our city, including immigrant and family-owned properties, and this legislation impacts all of them, including their guests and their employees.

Every member of the team is critical to promoting hospitality, and that means making sure each employee is safe in the workplace.

The Seattle Hotel Association has and continues to support panic buttons as an important component of employee safety.

We were proud to support state legislation this year that addresses this statewide by requiring panic buttons in hotels throughout Washington.

We've been committed to providing feedback to ensure that any legislation protects our employees while also considering the complexities of hotel operations, and we believe there's still work to be done.

For example, as you've heard, the required healthcare expenditures for employees, including part-time employees in the current draft, far exceed the cost of actually providing high quality health coverage.

And that's an issue that we need to continue to work to resolve.

We also question your decision to include non-hotel employees and small businesses in this legislation simply because they might be a tenant of a hotel.

This legislation is moving quickly, including special meetings like this one today.

And I just urge that you and we together take the time to make sure we get this right.

So we look forward to continuing to provide feedback as part of this process to ensure that the final legislation furthers our commitment to our employees and also our ability to provide world-class hospitality here in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thanks, Anna.

Anna will be followed by Isaac Organista at Washington Camp.

Welcome.

And then there was a group from Unite here.

Welcome, Isaac.

Hi.

My name is Isaac, and I'm with Washington Camp.

Last summer, I worked with a hotel here in Seattle where I quickly befriended the housekeeping staff because I was the only Spanish-speaking front desk worker there.

The workers were wonderful.

as they reminded me of members of my own family with their kind and playful personality, yet hardworking demeanor.

All the workers always gave it their all, never complaining about the physical toll this work has on their body.

And they can testify themselves, it is intense work at quick pace.

One of the housekeepers there, Norma, once got injured on the job.

She had slipped and fallen while cleaning the bathroom, hurting herself, which made doing this physically demanding job even more difficult and pain-inducing.

The rest of housekeeping had to clean the rooms she was assigned.

She took the next day off, but didn't go see a doctor because she couldn't afford to do so.

She was already working full-time at the hotel, and on her days off, was working to clean individual houses as an extra source of revenue, yet she still couldn't afford to go see a doctor.

Norma's story isn't an anomaly.

In fact, it's a story that many hotel workers can resonate with.

This is why we urge the members of the Housing, Health, Energy and Workers' Rights Committee and the City Council as a whole to stand with hotel workers and support this legislation in its entirety, along with any necessary amendments brought forward by Committee Chancellor Mosqueda.

Chairwoman Mosqueda and the Councilmember Gonzalez for your continued leadership and support in this crucial moment in defending these hard-fought rights for Seattle hotel workers.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The next group we have signed up is a group from Unite Here Local 8 and as per custom we'll give folks five minutes if there's more than two people.

After that, we'll have Marsha Botzer.

Welcome, Marsha.

Hi.

And then we'll be Grace Hong.

Botzer.

Welcome.

And pull that microphone real close to your mouth.

There you go.

Hello, council and council members.

My name is Lula Haile.

I am housekeeping of Edgewater Hotel.

I am a member of Union Hero.

local aid, and I am here with two others for local, giving our support and thank you for the law you are taking about today.

Working as housekeeping, I was assaulted by hotel guests.

I have told the story of what happened to me in order to fight to making thinking better for hotel workers.

But it was, it was been very hard for me.

Many of my fear that people would not believe me or would say it was my feet have coming through.

There have been time after the court that read in Tel Aviv I-24 that I did not have hope.

We have had to fight so hard at my hotel just to get panic button that would write.

It feels like nobody was thinking about our right to get to work and feel safety.

It feels like nobody was doing anything to stop what happened to me from happening to other workers.

Today, I am full of hope.

and pride to see this law.

In truth, when we share our story as immigrants and women, we need you to do have us and through us and to act.

And today, the city is doing that.

Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Lisa.

I come from Philippines.

I'm working at Embassy Suite Seattle.

Yeah, I'm moving here in America to make a better life for my family.

And I'm a single mom, so my insurance, we all know it's too much expensive.

And I have one daughter.

I want to send her to college, to her future, to make a better life than I had.

Yeah, that's why I moved here in Seattle.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councilmembers.

Abby Lawler with Unite Here Local 8. We're here to thank the Council for stepping in the void left by the really terrible appellate court decision on Initiative 124, and thank Chair Mosqueda and Councilmember Gonzalez for your leadership in ensuring that these protections once again become Seattle law.

The legislation you're being briefed on, I think, accomplishes two really important goals.

reinstating the core provisions of Initiative 124 as approved by 77% of Seattle voters, and also incorporating insights that we've learned from the two years that the law was in effect, and also from the relentless litigation that we've seen from the hotel industry.

And to be clear, we don't expect those legal attacks to ever go away, but we know that they shouldn't serve as cover for the city to back away from the incredibly important strides that have been taken, in particular on the issues that Lisa and Lula highlighted.

on protecting workers from workplace violence, and on expanding access to health care for more workers and their families.

And this legislation that's being introduced represents needed action to address the real lived experiences of hotel workers, to finally begin to rectify the fear the discrimination, the harassment, the violence, the stress, the anxiety, the pain, the injustice that these workers, these women, immigrants, and people of color who make the hotels in the city run, that they faced in their work.

So we're really grateful to the committee for scheduling a special public hearing on Tuesday after the end of the housekeeping shifts that you're able to hear.

for many more workers that day and I'm hopeful that you all will be able to attend and to hear from hotel workers from our members that day.

Thank you again for bringing this package of legislation forward and we look forward to working with the committee to strengthening it and making sure that we get these protections back in place.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Marcia followed by Grace.

Welcome Marcia.

Honorable Council Members, thank you so much.

From my beginnings of activism in the 1960s, I have served or started a number of organizations, and I know that when we pay the highest, have the best protections and the best health care, it works and we win.

And over these years of mutual projects that have been aimed at bettering our community, I have learned and I now fully and wholly believe that our objective and our goal is always and always should be more happiness in the world.

justice is part of happiness.

We know this.

We know that justice and equity are sure guides, sure companions in any hope for better lives.

And is it just or equitable to leave hotel workers without the decent protections that match the times that we are in now?

No, it is not.

And for that matter, it is not a moral act either.

Will hotel owners, by denying their employees safe workplaces, healthy workplaces, add to their own or our community's happiness?

They will not.

But will passing this legislation into law increase the real, just, and equitable happiness Yes, and a great many community workers and members, LGBTQ included, hotel guests included, and in truth, the owners themselves will experience that happiness.

Most assuredly, they will.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marsha.

I love your enthusiasm.

Grace, thanks for being here.

And if there's anybody who walked in late and wants to testify, you're welcome to still.

We will put an extra sign-in sheet at the other table so you can sign in.

Hi, Grace.

Hello.

Hi, my name is Grace Wong.

I'm with the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment in support of the four proposed ordinances supporting the safety, economic security, and health of hotel workers in the City of Seattle.

So my organization is a national resource center providing training, technical assistance, research and policy analysis, and advocacy addressing gender-based violence in the Asian and Pacific Islander community.

And so we are here in support of these measures given the significant number of Asian and Pacific Islander individuals who work in the hotel industry.

And I want to say I've, you know, had the opportunity to work with a few of you for decades at this point on the issue of gender violence in our community.

And it's heartening to see that this ordinance, I mean, the initiative that encompassed the measures covered in your ordinances were supported by 77% of the city in the elections, you know, and that there is recognition of the vulnerability to violence and the health issues facing hotel workers.

Often due to limited English and job training limitations, API and other immigrant women face barriers in speaking out about abuse and injuries on the job.

So we, along with various partners across the country and with Unite here, have been promoting safety from sexual and domestic violence in the workplace.

And so in addition to the panic buttons and the measures relating to preventing abusers from returning, We also support the healthcare and economic protections in the bill relating to the ability of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to be able to recover from injury and leave abusive relationships and recover from abuse.

So these pieces are critical along with the panic buttons in making sure that hotel workers have access to safety and security.

So we ask that the council members pass these measures and recognize the importance of the safety, health, and autonomy for this group of workers.

And thank you for your leadership.

Thank you very much, Grace.

Thanks.

I did see a few other people sign up to testify.

So we will take that second sheet.

And I'm excited to see more people signing up.

Hi, Cindy.

The first person I'd like to call is Fajir Saeed from Legal Voice, Abraham, and then Michael Clark from the Hotel Association.

Good afternoon, Councilmembers, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.

My name is Fedra Sy-Debrahim.

I work at Legal Voice, a progressive nonprofit organization that litigates for women's and LGBTQ rights in the five Pacific Northwest states.

Legal Voice has been providing analysis and support to Unite Here, Local 8, and other community partners on the rulemaking related to I-124 and now on this ordinance.

Given our longstanding focus on gender-based violence and economic justice for everyone, all workers, we are particularly focused on the draft ordinance protecting hotel workers from guest sexual assault and harassment.

Overall, we commend the City Council for the ordinance's strong sexual assault protections for hotel housekeepers and room service workers, and we thank Chair Mosqueda and Councilmember Gonzalez for their leadership in defending these rights for all workers.

Simply put, the hotel industry is looking for permission from City Council to continue to accommodate guest sexual harassment and violence at the expense of hotel workers.

We cannot stand for this.

The legislation as proposed sends a strong message that we agree with, that hotel workers should be trusted, all workers should be trusted, and when a hotel guest has perpetrated violence, Action must be taken to prevent that violence and protect the workers.

Our policies must recognize that it is not the workers' responsibility to avoid violence or harassment.

Workers are not to blame if they are assaulted or harassed, and they should not suffer health or other consequences in order to accommodate their harassers.

So consistent with that, we would recommend that in the immediate aftermath of a worker survivor report of harassment, that the ordinance require that hotels relocate guests to different floors as opposed to putting the burden on workers to find another assignment.

And further, we suggest that the legislation include a regular study by the city to study the effectiveness of the sexual assault and harassment protections.

We urge the committee and the city council as a whole to stand with hotel workers and support this critical legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Michael Clark followed by Cindy Domingo.

Welcome, Michael.

You'll have to forgive me.

I've just come from the dentist.

Okay, no worries.

Just try to get the microphone a little closer to your mouth.

Thank you.

You can adjust it.

So my name is Michael Clark.

I'm the general manager of the Renaissance Seattle Hotel, and I also sit on the Seattle Hotel Association Board.

So I've worked in the hospitality and specifically the hotel industry since 1986. I started as a dishwasher in a hotel.

I've been a busboy, a waiter, and worked my way up.

Over the years, I'm very proud to support an amazing team of 250 employees.

And when I say support them, that's what I mean.

I don't think of myself as overseeing them.

I think of myself as someone that's there to protect them, to help them, to make sure that they can be the best that they can be.

I'm interested in them personally, professionally, and their success is our success.

I believe that.

I believe that ever since I first became a manager, and I consider it a fundamental part of my job.

Without them, we are nothing.

We have nothing.

Safety, obviously, is a top priority.

And again, I said that I care deeply about all the folks that I work with.

We've been committed to We've been committed to providing panic buttons for employees at my hotel.

They've been implemented for about two years.

The legislation as proposed impacts far more than the hotel staff and safety issues.

The ancillary businesses that have been recently addressed, many of them are small businesses who lease space and provide services in our hotel.

It could put many of them out of business.

It doesn't make sense to extend the requirements simply because they are tenant or provide services.

I've had a chance to review the health care revisions.

The cost requirements, that portion of the legislation is far beyond what most businesses in the city offer cost-wise.

My hotel provides health care insurance, very high quality insurance for our employees.

The required expenditures in the legislation are significantly higher than what it actually costs us.

Michael, could you wrap up for us?

It's important that we get this right and not just push it through.

It's important that there's more dialogue between our industry and the council and we come up with solutions to draft ordinances that are mutually beneficial.

Thank you very much and we're happy as well to take your written testimony if you'd like to leave it.

I know we had to cut you off at the end there.

Welcome Cindy Domingo.

Hi.

Actually, this is my first time to testify over here in 25 years that I worked across the street.

And this is to tell you how important this issue is to myself and as well to King County Council Member Larry Gossett, who I'm representing here today.

and as well as the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, which is a national organization that has a Seattle chapter that organizes and works for the Asian Pacific Islander workers, their needs, and their right to organize and to advocate for better working conditions for themselves and a fair wage.

So thank you for this opportunity to speak before the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

I know that all of you on this committee are strong advocates for workers, and especially for those that are most disenfranchised, like the hotel workers.

I come here today because these women that we're advocating, these API women, the Latino women, the African American women, are very important to me personally and to Councilmember Gossett and to APALA.

My family had many hotel workers and their families who faced much more harsher conditions because they were unorganized.

And fortunately for these women, they are courageous and have stood at the front line to win their rights as an organized labor force.

So it is with the mission of APALA and Council Member Gossett that I come here to speak on behalf of women hotel employees who only seek to be safe on the job and free from violent and harassing conduct.

In other words, what these women hotel workers are wanting is their basic human rights to work without disrespect, fear, and physical harm that so often comes with their jobs.

When I think about my job at the county, in the legislative arena.

I can only imagine what would happen.

That so often happens to hotel women workers.

If someone was to expose themselves to me, if someone was to continually come to my work site after harassing me and then proceeding to harass someone else, in all of those examples, severe actions would be taken.

Legislation has occurred at the county to protect us workers from that type of activity, violence and sexual harassment.

But yet we expect our hotel workers to be without those protections.

Why?

Because they're women, because they're women of color, because they're immigrants and refugees.

And this audience today is here to speak out for these women, to join with them on the front lines in their fight to get that respect and their human rights.

So I support, APALA supports, and Council Member Gossett supports the passage of this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Cindy, and please extend our appreciation to Councilmember Larry Gossett as well for his support of this.

I wanted to just double check to see if there was anybody else who wanted to testify who hasn't had the chance to.

Okay, so seeing no one else signed up to testify, I want to acknowledge before I get into my comments, that the council here represented in 2016 and before in the years since 2016 was very supportive of Initiative 124. You all passed a resolution and today is an extension of that conversation from three years ago.

I'm happy to open it up as we go down the line.

Council Member Gonzalez, you are a co-sponsor and then if there's others that would like to chime in, given your past work on this, we would welcome that before we get into the meat of this.

Sure, thank you Chair Mosqueda.

I appreciate the opportunity to just make some brief remarks and I won't make them too long because I really want to dig into this briefing and give Council Central staff and the City Attorney's Office an opportunity to really walk us through the meat of what we're here to talk about.

But just wanted to extend my gratitude to you, Chair Mosqueda, for your ongoing collaboration on these issues.

It's been, I think, a long six-month process over the last several months to really continue to engage the various stakeholders, workers and hotel owners and property managers in getting us to this point now.

And I'm really excited to continue the conversation over the next six weeks.

And I know that there are some policy issues that are yet to be discussed and debated.

And I think this is a good opportunity for us to do that.

in sort of the spirit of transparency and wanting to have the conversation publicly.

I know that you and I felt it was really important to introduce a set of bills to begin that conversation and really excited that we're finally here and looking forward to continuing to work on these issues together to make sure that we have the strongest protections available to hotel workers.

Thank you very much, Council Member.

Council Member Swann.

Thank you, Council Member Skida.

I really appreciate both the workers who have spoken up here and also who have been speaking for years and Unite Here Eight, the union that the workers are organized with.

It is a really powerful example that Unite Here, not only Unite Here local aid, but Unite Here nationwide has shown throughout the last few years that the best way to push back against the attacks on workers' rights and especially the ramping up of attacks on workers' rights through the Trump administration is for workers to be unionized with strong unions that are willing to carry out a concerted and collective fight back and I absolutely second everybody who's spoken here and in the past about how we cannot compromise on the question of sexual harassment of our workers and especially given that this is an industry that is most represented by women workers, Asian, Asian Pacific Islander and women of color as a whole, many immigrant women who also face other oppressions in society.

And so that is why it's really important that the council take a strong position on this, especially in light of the fact that 77% of the voters voted for it.

And yes, it is a terrible ruling that has come from the court.

And I just wanted to note that as soon as that happened, my office was in touch with Unite Here Aid, letting them know that we will, of course, be with them every step of the way And I'm really thankful to Lisa and Lola, who shared their stories, which is not easy to do, so I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Anybody else?

Councilmember Herbold or Councilmember O'Brien?

Okay.

Well, I want to acknowledge that you're here.

Thank you.

I didn't say thank you yet for being here.

We are joined by Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Councilmembers Sawant and Councilmember Gonzalez.

Erin, before we get started, why don't you go ahead and read items one through four in the record, and then we will introduce our panelists here.

Okay, we have Council Bill 119554, an ordinance related to employment in Seattle requiring certain employers to limit room cleaning workloads for certain employees.

Council Bill 119555, an ordinance relating to employment in Seattle requiring certain employees to make required healthcare expenditures to or on behalf of certain employees for the purpose of improving access to medical care.

Council Bill 119556, an ordinance relating to employment in Seattle, adding a new Chapter 14.29 to the Seattle Municipal Code, and amending Sections 3.15000 and 6.208020 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

And Council Bill 119557, an ordinance relating to employment in Seattle, requiring certain employers to make certain actions to prevent, protect, and respond to violent or harassing conduct by guests.

Thank you very much.

Why don't we do introductions and then I'll have a few opening comments before we get in.

Dan Eder, a Deputy Director for Council Central Staff.

Karina Bull, Central Staff.

Janine Chan, Acting Policy Manager, Office of Labor Standards.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And I want to say, Karina, is this the first time you've had the chance to come to the table in your new role?

It is.

Okay.

Welcome, Karina Bull, as our lead on labor policy issues for Central Staff.

Very excited to have you all here.

And I want to say a special thank you to our Central Staff, but also to the Office of Labor Standards for your ongoing analysis and working with us and the law department over the last a few months as we've been crafting legislation.

Really appreciate your work at the Office of Labor Standards and appreciate the executive for continuing to engage with us.

So just very few comments.

I want to reiterate that today's conversation has not cropped up out of nowhere.

Today's conversation, as you heard from council members, Gonzalez and others, is that this is a continuation of the work that was initiated in 2016. And just this year alone, we've had dozens of meetings with stakeholders, the Office of Labor Standards, our legal teams.

Council colleagues and the executive and we're very excited to bring this forward to continue the commitment the will of the voters which was 77% in support of the measure to extend job protections to hotel workers.

The initiative that went through then was followed by intensive rulemaking that happened at the Office of Labor Standards.

It was implemented and so we're in a really interesting position right now where we have the benefit we have the fortune of of looking at how it was implemented and also learning from some of those issues.

As I've said before, any piece of legislation, and it applies to initiatives as well, we get the benefit of looking back and seeing what we can do to make it more implementable, workable, and to achieve those goals that were included in the initiative.

Unfortunately, that initiative has been held up in the court and is pending legal challenges.

And while we got good news earlier this year that the Supreme Court is taking up the issue related to the initiative, our incredible city attorney's office, I want to shout them out, have done a great job of continuing to argue the case to ensure that the City of Seattle's voters' will is implemented and upheld.

And while we wait, workers remain unprotected.

And while we wait for that decision, they continue to face extreme conditions, some of which we've heard today.

And many other of the, I will acknowledge some of the hotel managers have also said that while the issue is being debated, many of them have continued the implementation, which we appreciate.

But we don't want there to be any gray area or any workers that don't receive protections.

So the intent of this effort is to make sure that any individual, the house cleaners, those who are working at hotels on the property, anybody in the area is free, free from harassment, intimidation, discrimination, has reasonable work standards in place, recognizing the incredible nature of the hard work it is to be working in a hotel, that they have adequate health care.

And as I mentioned earlier today at a press conference, there's an incredible report that was put out in 2016, I believe, by some of the partners at Puget Sound SAGE that looked at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and saw that hotel workers, house cleaners, have higher rates of injury than coal miners and those who work in the building construction trades.

In fact, hotel workers have three times as much back injury claims as those in the general population.

So there's no question about why I think the voters wanted to ensure these protections for workers.

This is a very strenuous type of work.

Lula and Lisa said, as we were just closing up earlier today, this is really hard work.

You guys do very difficult work every day.

And so the continuation of the protections for workers is incredibly important.

And the race and equity analysis that we're applying to this work is incredibly important.

Let's lift up again that these are mostly women workers, mostly immigrants, mostly people of color.

And we want to make sure that we're extending the protections to this industry that we would anticipate and expect in any other industry.

a special appreciation for those who've been engaged with us on bringing forward the legislation here today.

I want to reiterate, we've had three committee hearings thus far.

On March 21st, we heard from central staff about the provisions in Initiative 124. On March 3rd, I'm sorry, on April 4th, we heard from Unite Here and hotel workers about the impact of the health and safety concerns.

On May 2nd, we heard from leaders in the hotel industries about their experiences with implementing initiative 124 and how to make some improvements if we were going to move forward.

I had the chance to hear from them in the meeting that initiative 124 was passed and you know this really did help advocate for them to push for the panic buttons at the state level which was initiative senate bill I'm sorry senate bill 5258 and we want to underscore our appreciation for the work that you all did this legislative session on the panic buttons.

And we've talked about some of the feedback that we've received so far in front of us today, underscoring again that this is the first draft of the legislation.

There will be more conversations to have On July 11th, we will be continuing the discussion on the legislation and potential amendments.

So please, as you hear items come up over the next two weeks, keep in mind that we'd like to do issue identification on the 11th.

Please let us know if you have other ideas that you could present to us next Wednesday.

That way, I think given the holiday, we will incorporate those into a memo.

That would be very helpful.

On July 18th, we will be discussing the amendments and holding a potential vote.

And we have also held August 1st for a potential vote, if needed, on the amended legislation.

So looking forward to today's discussion.

A special thanks to all of you, and I'll hold some thanks to the end.

But this has been an intense process to come up with these four pieces of legislation today.

So let's go ahead and walk through it.

If we can, let's start with workloads 119554 and then go from there.

I'll turn it over to you, Dan, to help us understand more of the general context before we go into each one if you'd like.

Just if I might, we also have the memo, the central staff memo that was provided for us.

I'm going to, I think it was like 11 pages.

So we have copies of that on the desk if anybody wants that.

And we will also scroll through so that you can see where we're at in the memo.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

The memo that you referenced is also linked on the committee's agenda for those who are not physically here, can see it on the web.

The chair already covered a lot of the materials that are in the first couple of pages of the memo, essentially the orientation about how we came to be here at the table today, what steps the committee has already taken, and what some of the next steps are.

I think we are prepared collectively between Karina and I, we will walk you through attachment A, which is a multiple page matrix that shows the provisions that were included in the initiative 124 that are, as the chair mentioned, are now on hold pending a legal challenge.

and comparing and contrasting the provisions that are included in the four pieces of legislation that are on your agenda today for discussion, not for a vote.

I think we're going to start with Karina is going to do some of the overarching issues that cross all of the provisions and the bills that are before you.

And then she's, with the chair's permission, she's going to cover a little bit out of order of what you just suggested.

She's going to cover a couple of the bills and compare and contrast with the initiative.

And then I will cover a couple.

Great.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

So to begin with overarching topics, Initiative 124 was one ordinance.

Now we have four ordinances.

And as far as employer coverage, it maintains the same definitions of hotels, 60-plus rooms for some ordinances, 100-plus rooms for other ordinances.

It continues the requirement for contracted premises or contracted services to be covered.

However, it gives it a new label.

It's called ancillary hotel business now and three of the ordinances and one, it's just contracted services.

And as we go through each ordinance, we'll also specify some additional modifications where ancillary hotel business in two of the laws has an employee threshold as well, and that recognizes the impact on small businesses.

Those ordinances have more of an economic impact on business.

Chair Mosqueda, may I really quickly?

Just to orient the viewing public and our colleagues at the table, some of us have been spending a lot of time on this chart, so we know exactly what the parts are to it.

But I just wanted to let folks that sort of the far column are the topics that are included in the various pieces of legislation.

The next column says I-124, so that represents what was initially in the initiative that was voted and approved by 77% of the voters in the city of Seattle.

And then the last column is what Council Member Mosqueda and I are proposing that is reflected in the relevant and appropriate council bill.

Thank you very much for that guide.

It is a very comprehensive chart.

It is, and it's very detailed and very well done, and I just wanted to make sure folks could follow along what the comparison is here.

Thank you.

Absolutely, sure.

Okay, so the next overarching change is regarding enforcement, still maintaining a private right of action.

In the initiative, the Office of Labor Standards had a limited enforcement role.

The office could conduct investigations and issue administrative rules, but didn't have the authority to impose a remedy or a fine on a noncompliant employer.

unless that particular requirement happened to overlap with the wage theft prevention ordinance.

So that ordinance broadly covers any situation where an employer owes an employee money.

So before, Office of Labor Standards could only impose a remedy if the employer didn't pay the amount of money for medical care or didn't pay the premium for cleaning going over the maximum square footage.

So with these, all four of these proposed ordinances, the Office of Labor Standards has a full enforcement role, as is true for all of our other labor standards.

So it's maintaining that consistency.

Not in this chart, but something that's noteworthy is that the initiative had a collective bargaining agreement waiver for the entire ordinance.

For these proposed ordinances, the CBA waiver is continued for all of the ordinances except for the ordinance addressing workplace violence and protections against sexual harassment as well.

So going on into the individual ordinances, Council Member Mosqueda has stepped away.

I think she wanted to start.

I'm taking her position, yes.

Would you like to continue with protections against workplace violence and harassment or go on to workload maximums?

I think it's fine to just follow along in the chart just for ease of reference.

Understood.

So to begin, what employers does this ordinance cover?

It covers hotels with 60 plus rooms, that's the same as the initiative, and an ancillary hotel business of any size.

So that very much mirrors the original initiative.

As far as employee coverage, again, it's maintaining coverage of employees who are covered by minimum wage, and working for a covered employer in Seattle.

So it's covering work just within Seattle's geographic boundaries.

The initial ordinance had a requirement to work at least two hours in any work week in Seattle.

That has actually been struck as an overarching change.

throughout all of the ordinances.

A change in this ordinance is that there is no exclusion for managers, supervisors, and confidential employees.

So these particular protections will cover all employees that work at that place of business or for an ancillary hotel business that are covered by minimum wage.

Similar to the initiative, employers are required to provide a panic button.

It does have a slightly expanded definition of panic button.

to reflect the need for employees to receive assistance directly to wherever they are in the hotel, wherever they are experiencing that alleged violence or harassment.

So there are some additional protections written into the law for those situations.

The panic button is also required to be provided to all employees who work in a guest room or make deliveries.

to a guest room.

In the initiative, it was just for employees who were alone and in isolated situations.

With this new ordinance, even if there's a team cleaning or a team delivery, they're going to both be given a panic button.

Next is that employers are required to develop a policy against violent and harassing conduct and to distribute that policy to the guest and to employees.

And then if an employee reports an allegation that a guest participated or engaged in violent harassing conduct, the employer must take a series of actions and prescribed behaviors if they determine that the conduct did or didn't occur.

So for this particular part of the ordinance, it is quite different.

It has the same goal of protecting the worker immediately, but the way it unfolds is different from the initiative.

So now, after receiving an allegation, an employer must take immediate steps to safeguard the employees during an investigation, conduct an investigation, make sure to inform both the guest and the employee of that investigation, and then issue a prompt written determination of their final conclusion.

The employee's allegation does not need to be accompanied by a sworn statement, so that's broadening the ability for the employer to make the investigation without that information.

On item number six, the protections, if you could just go over it a little bit more in terms of what the initiative said versus what's being said here.

Are there any specifications about what the investigation or what would constitute an investigation?

And I'm asking that because I mean, obviously, we don't want the intent of the legislation is not to sort of go back to an HR-based model, meaning a model where it hasn't worked, you know, for workers in general.

I don't mean just hotel workers, but the whole model of, you know, workers going to the human resources department saying, hey, you know, something happened.

And then in name the investigation was conducted, but it didn't really benefit the worker because the role of HR is actually not to look out for the workers, but to sort of settle it somehow and make it go away.

So what approach are we using here?

Yeah, thank you for that.

So what's interesting about the initiative is that The employer's obligations after receiving an allegation automatically jump to post-investigation.

And in this initiative, it actually prescribes steps that need to happen before even reaching that conclusion of whether the conduct did or didn't occur.

So in the initiative, it just said if the employer decides this happened, this is what they need to do.

Here, there's a full investigation that the employee needs to be apprised of the steps, the guest needs to be apprised of the steps.

It does say it's a fair investigation, it's impartial.

and that there actually needs to be a written determination.

So again, that is giving information both to the worker and to the guest of what the employer's final conclusion is.

So in the initiative, after receiving the allegation, the employer needed to document the identity of the guest in a list that was retained for five years.

Now, there's no requirement to keep that list, but the employer does need to take certain actions for a certain number of years.

The employer needed to warn all employees who were assigned to work in that guest room for five years.

And then, depending on the nature of the allegation, if it included sexual assault, sexual harassment, or assault, the guest, the hotel must decline service to the guest for three years.

Is that right?

Keep me honest here.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

That's right.

But I want to make sure that you have a direct answer to your question that I think Karina did cover, but I just want to emphasize.

In the initiative, A mere accusation was sufficient to require the hotel to take actions that could involve banning the guests from coming back to the hotel.

The legislation that's before you includes the potential repercussion of a guest being banned, but it does require that there be some level of investigation.

It doesn't lay out exactly how that invest, every step of what that investigation must include, but there must be a notification to the guest and to the employee that an investigation is underway so they have a fair opportunity to provide their perspective of what happened.

It could involve other steps, but they're not specified in the legislation.

At the end of the investigation, if the hotel determines that the allegation was credible, then repercussions flow depending on what kind of action or conduct took place.

Did you want to add something?

Colleagues, the one thing that I would add in this area that I think is important for us to have a conversation about is twofold.

One is some of the points that Dan made around the lack of specifics of how the investigation pursues.

I think we're of the belief that those are issues that can likely be considered and addressed in rulemaking to the extent that they need to be.

Keep in mind that we still have the sort of path of rulemaking to get into some of the more granular details.

The second piece is that there is a discussion that we can have around what the standard of proof would be required in the investigation process so that, again, we are addressing any potential due process concerns.

And that's something that we've initially talked about is sort of how can we make sure that we have clarity around what the standard of proof is so it's not a you know beyond a reasonable doubt but more likely than not for example and right now the language of the ordinance that we've introduced is silent on that issue and I do think it would be prudent from a policy perspective to be clear on that.

in the rules or in the ordinance?

I think there's a question about whether we put it in the rules or in the ordinance, but either way, I think we need to sort of directly answer those questions.

And I totally agree, yes.

Some of this will fall under rulemaking.

I just wanted to just raise that.

Thank you very much.

So as Dan was saying, Depending on the result of the employer's investigation, certain repercussions will follow depending on what the outcome was.

So if the investigation determines that the violent or harassing conduct occurred and also involved physical injury, bodily injury, and other unwelcome touching, the hotel must decline service to the guest for five years.

If the investigation determines that the conduct occurred but did not involve that unwelcome touching, then the hotel will not ban the guest or decline service, but they will not assign employees to work in that guest room or make deliveries for five years.

In the situation where the investigation didn't show that the conduct occurred, the hotel still must not assign the employee who made the allegation to work in that guest room for five years.

And then in all of this, a guest can appeal the hotel's determination to the city's hearing examiner, and the rules and process for that is in a separate Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 3.02.

I'm trying to understand how that investigation how that investigation plays out I mean do we have do we have some vision of what that looks like or how long it takes and who's involved or is it is it really just the language we have here is about the detail level we have at the moment?

So this is what we have at the moment and going to what Councilmember Gonzalez was saying talking about rules that can be a place that can identify requirements for how an investigation might fold.

Certainly Office of Labor Standards question and answers could also provide guidance.

But as to the detailed requirements, this is what we have in the law right now.

I have I have a couple different interests here, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate them.

One, I absolutely believe that if a hotel worker says that they have experienced any of this type of conduct, that we need to have rules in place to protect them immediately and in the long term.

I'm also concerned about a hotel running an investigation I don't know that they have the expertise to do investigations.

I'm, you know, as soon as we get into an investigative body, I would want to ensure that the types of biases that often creep into all sorts of discretionary decisions, that there are, you know, that there's either some awareness or expertise or level of assurance.

And I just, I have concerns about disproportionately certain types of guests being treated one way in an investigative process versus another, possibly intentionally in a kind of bad actor situation, but even just where kind of unintentional bias starts creeping into this.

And if, you know, if there's a body that has expertise in doing investigations and is building expertise, but if this is, you know, any given hotel in town may conduct an investigation, you know, every couple years and there's different people doing it.

I'm worried about how that plays out and what happens.

I appreciate the ability to appeal to the hearing examiner, but I'm wondering if there's another body that would be doing these investigations beyond just the the hotel, because I'm worried that they don't have that expertise.

And the worry they don't have expertise is one level.

The worry that without that expertise that we start treating different guests differently.

Again, want to support the workers, and allegations have been made.

But an allegation against a wealthy white individual in a hotel might have a different level of investigation.

than a lower income person of color who gets an allegation of them and their ability to defend themselves and stuff like that.

So I'm concerned about that.

So I don't know, Chair, if you have thoughts on that.

I do have some thoughts on that.

I'll wait until after Council Member Herbold.

She may have some thoughts as well.

Well, you know, I hear what you're saying, Council Member O'Brien, but the fact is that owners of private businesses can currently expel and trespass people off of their property without any investigation.

So the fact that we are creating these standards, Whereas they may not be as clear as we'd like them to be, there are standards that don't exist right now.

And so the ability of a private business owner to use bias to make decisions around exclusion of their guests already exists.

So, you know, I think we should have more of a conversation around this and try to potentially use rulemaking to create additional clarity.

But given that I always feel like we're, you know, we're tightening up an area where there's, potentially a great deal of bias, particularly for this kind of activity, is moving us in a direction that will reduce the bias in those decision-makings.

One thing I did want to flag on the hearing examiner side is that I recognize that appeal processes are typically, but again, this is an appeal process that doesn't currently exist for people who are being excluded from private property, so this is like a new, I think, a new...

sort of, not a protection, but it's a safeguard, right?

That doesn't exist currently for people being excluded from a private business.

But I do recognize that the city has data that shows a disproportionate use of appeal processes by people of color versus Caucasians.

So I just want to think about the usefulness of the appeal process given that sort of historical disproportionality that we know.

The disproportionality is that white people use the appeal process more than people of color?

I will also acknowledge this is an issue area where we're going to continue to do some more research.

We're looking at the policy implications, as has been outlined right now, and some other possible solutions.

We've heard from some of the folks at Office of Civil Rights, folks at Unite Here, the Hotel Association, as well as Councilmember Bagshaw, who wanted us to look at how SPD could get involved.

We did have some initial conversations about that.

I think it's important to note.

specifically about who this population is.

I think folks are going to be more fearful potentially of calling the police if they experience retaliation and harassment and we don't want to create a disincentive for people to call if there is a concern around harassment or intimidation and I think We don't yet have a clear recommendation for how this could potentially be amended, but it does sound like there's interest around the table in making sure that we get this right.

Recognizing especially who the population is and wanting to ensure that people feel absolutely confident about coming forward if there is something that's happened.

And also recognizing that if somebody is cleared, if a violation hasn't occurred and The accusation wasn't found to be accurate that those individuals also are not continued to be called out.

So that's the, I think, the sensitive balance that we're working on.

Part of also the issue is that if somebody does feel like they were harassed and that was their experience, we don't want them to be in this situation in the future.

So trying to find the right balance and policy to get there is what we're going to work with you all on and you all on.

in the next two weeks here, I should say two to six weeks here.

But I want to flag that this is an issue that we are continuing to look into.

This might not be the final language, so let's all put our heads together on this.

Council Member O'Brien.

One thing that I don't know the implications of this, but I'd be intrigued to explore.

I hear the concern that a hotel worker may not feel comfortable calling the police about a certain type.

I assume similarly they may have hesitancy to go to their bosses about it too.

And wondering if there's a path to have, you know, the Office of Labor Standards or the Office of Civil Rights be the body that hears these concerns.

I'm not, there's an immediacy thing where, you know, something is happening and You know, I need to finish my work day and I can't do that with someone here where, you know, if it's a 24 or 48 hour delay to go to the city, that's going to cause some problems.

But as far as an investigation appellate process, it has a little more oversight.

So I'm interested in if those options have been explored and what the ramifications are of that versus this kind of concept.

Great.

Yeah, let's put our heads together.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Yeah, there's a couple of things that I'd say in response to that.

One is, you know, as somebody who practiced employment law and employment discrimination law representing workers for 10 years, I share a fair amount of skepticism about about HR processes and who they're designed for.

And it's pretty clear that there's a standard in the industry to limit risk, limit liability, and therefore protect the employer as opposed to advocating and engaging in corrective behavior on behalf of the worker.

So recognizing that that's the environment, I think there's an opportunity to recognize that we need to be conscientious of that sort of hesitancy to report, which exists in all work environments regardless of what the industry is.

And I think the obvious opportunity here is for those hotel workers who actually are represented currently by Unite Here, they'll have a shop steward to go to or someone else at the union to go to directly to help them with those potential complaints.

But I also think there's a, secondarily to that, I think there's an opportunity for us to have a conversation about what it would look like to create sort of an advocate position that would represent the hotel worker in this instant.

instance.

So what would it look like to, for example, require that there be a third party who has the workers' interests in mind during that investigation process and reporting process to ensure that the workers' rights were being protected?

In my experience, most employers who have HR departments You know, ordinarily have an HR representative, a lawyer, or a lawyer on call.

You know, they're generally very well resourced in terms of understanding the fundamentals of law and how to structure an investigation.

And employers generally, when they do get a report of a violation of law like this one, they already have an obligation under state law to do in investigation of that activity.

So if there is ever a claim of a potential violation that would violate the Washington law against discrimination, which would cover this type of behavior, the employer already has an obligation and a duty to conduct an investigation if they want to have any sort of legitimate defense to civil lawsuits.

I think there's an opportunity for us to, again, address some of the concerns that Councilmember Ryan, you're bringing up in a way that could be reasonable.

The details, obviously, we'll have to figure out because the devil's always in the details.

But I feel pretty strongly that in these types of settings, it would be really important to provide the worker with the appropriate advocacy resources that he or she would need to feel comfortable to first and foremost, report, and second, feel like they're being guided through the civil administrative investigatory process.

We see this ordinarily in a lot of criminal cases, for example.

So CASA program is a good example of that, where folks are assigned an advocate who helps them understand what the legal process is and what the next steps are going to be in sort of the bureaucracy of that investigation.

So I think there's an opportunity to perhaps explore that model here.

if there's interest.

Thank you so much.

So we have noted this.

I know everybody's kind of circling this issue on their papers.

We will come back to this and work with you all in the next few weeks here.

Go ahead, Karina.

All right.

The final point we'll make about this particular ordinance is that the initiative required a hotel to provide what's, in quote, sufficient paid time for an employee who made this report of violent or sexual harassment.

to consult with a counselor or advisor.

And so in this ordinance, that sufficient amount of paid time is defined as up to eight hours of paid time within seven days following this report of violent or harassing conduct.

So that completes the description of that particular ordinance, safety protections against workplace violence and harassing conduct.

The next ordinance is protecting hotel employees from injury.

And this is the workload cleaning maximum limits, that's the more...

I don't know if that's easier to understand or not, but it's another way of referencing it.

So as far as employer coverage, this has a larger threshold number of rooms for coverage.

It has 100 plus rooms in order for a hotel employer to be covered.

And instead of using that new term, ancillary hotel business, It is limiting the coverage to contractors who provide services at a large hotel.

Employees, again, are those who are hourly.

They're covered by the minimum wage.

And, again, there was no requirement to work at least two hours in any work week in Seattle.

And, again, there is no exclusion for managers, supervisors, and confidential employees.

Notably, in this proposed ordinance, all of the initiatives requirements that employers comply with the Washington State Industrial Safety and Health Act are removed because that already exists under state law.

So this ordinance doesn't repeat that.

Again, similar to the initiative, there is an established limit of 5,000 square feet of guest room space that a hotel employee can clean.

And that limit is for what a hotel can require an employee to clean.

A hotel employee can request or consent to clean more, but what this ordinance does is definitively codify the employee's ability to say, no, I'm not interested in cleaning more.

It codifies their right to decline that request.

Room cleaning has a specific definition in this proposed ordinance and it specifically excludes something that I believe was excluded in the rules.

Is that right?

And that's what is commonly referred to as turndown service.

So if the bed's already made and the hotel employee is simply turning it back with maybe a mint on the pillow, that is not considered room cleaning and won't count towards their 5,000 square foot maximum.

Strenuous room cleaning was defined in the initiative.

It does have a tweak to it in this proposed ordinance where it is the same to include a checkout room, the same to include a stayover room.

The new change is that the stayover room must not have received a room cleaning for more than 24 hours.

Council Member Herbal.

Thank you.

As it relates to the issue of room cleaning and its definition, I understand that some hotels break up the functions of room cleaning, so they'll have somebody, one person who goes in and is responsible for only making the beds.

And I don't think this is, this isn't the exclusion regarding preparing already made beds.

Newly made beds.

So how do we handle that issue where some hotels have sort of bifurcated the duties, I think, probably for efficiency sake or assigning maybe somebody with more physical strength?

to doing that bed cleaning component of the overall room cleaning.

Yeah, so I'm going to posit an answer and I'm going to look to my colleagues to make sure that I have this correct.

My understanding is that if a housekeeper is performing a single duty, regardless of that, If the whole room counts towards that workload maximum.

So is that correct?

So if the housekeeper is only taking the sheets off the bed and that is all that the housekeeper is doing, that's still 300 square feet.

If that is the size of the room to count towards their workload maximum.

Is that correct?

I think yes and no.

That's why you're here.

Yeah, I think that there's an additional provision that you haven't gotten to that was added related to team cleaning.

So it depends on whether or not we believe that's, oh sorry, that those functions, so I think they're commonly called a strippers or housemen, if that is considered a team clean.

So if they're cleaning their room at the same time, I think there could be an opportunity for the room to be split among them.

But I think if they're doing it wildly independent of one another, that there is room that it would be the entire square footage that would count.

So they would be subject to those square footage limitations as well.

So if it's a single employee going into a room and only removing the sheets.

That would be 300 square feet if that's the size of the room towards their maximum.

Whereas another employee might go in and remove the sheets and clean the bathroom and vacuum the floor, and that's 300 square feet towards their workload maximum.

Correct.

Okay.

Council Member O'Brien.

A question on the 24-hour for definition of a stayover room.

Is the idea that if someone doesn't have a room cleaned one night or one day and skip a day that that would be it?

That's what's trying to trigger it?

Correct.

I believe it addresses the green cleaning initiatives.

My concern would be just about the 24 hours, how strict that is.

If someone got their room cleaned at 10.30 one morning and the next day it's at 11.30, we're at 25 hours.

I don't know that we would intend to say that is a stay over.

And so maybe like a 36 hour rule would capture the typical variability if that was the intent.

I think that's a really good suggestion and one we've also heard that 36 hours seems a little bit more reasonable with current practice.

And I think we'll look into that for sure.

So you can anticipate that that one will be on our issue identification.

Thank you for bringing it up and for being really specific about, you know, the reality of the cleaning.

We will, let's explore 36 because that sounds like it's the number that's resonating with a lot of the parties involved.

So Janae already teamed up the change for team cleaning.

The initiative didn't address situations when there's more than one employee in a room performing the cleaning.

The proposed ordinance does.

The proposed ordinance allows hotels to divide their square footage by the number of employees in the room.

So if it's a 300 square foot room, there are two Employees in there.

It's a hundred and fifty square feet towards each of those employees square foot maximum However, these employees have to agree to the team cleaning and the reason for that provision is to address situations where it could be a team cleaning, but maybe one of the employees knows the the style of the other cleaner, and maybe they know they're going to be in there doing 70% of the cleaning rather than 50%.

So it does have to be an agreement to do that team cleaning.

Council Member Swatt.

Do we know what kind of numbers there are in terms of, you know, like what proportion of cleaning in hotels is done on an individual basis?

Or in teams, do we have any indication of that?

And I'm also, I mean, this is not the main point, but just sort of made me think about whether it has any bearing at all on the incidences of sexual harassment.

If there was any indication that team cleaning, I don't know at all that it does this, but just the thought that occurred to me that does it, Is it anyway a deterrent?

Is it proven to be a deterrent?

Do we have any numbers?

I don't just mean in Seattle, but just in general in the hotel industry or in workplaces of this nature.

And I do think that is a good point about employees having to agree to team cleaning.

Is that also the generally observed norm right now by employers that they When there's team cleaning that it is when employees agree to it, what's the standard now?

Or is this something going to be something new?

Or is it just codifying what's already the norm?

Yeah, so the quick answer to all of your questions is I don't have all of that information.

So I don't know if it's the norm.

I anticipate that it probably is not the norm to obtain an employee's consent before signing team cleaning.

I have in the back of my mind a thought that there are some places, and I'm thinking maybe New York, that require team cleaning for the safety of housekeepers.

And I don't know the impact of that and what studies have been done to see if there are reduced instances of reports of sexual harassment.

Did you say New York?

I believe so.

Even if there's no evidence, if you could forward that to us.

I'll see if I'm actually right.

Yeah, it might be useful.

You ready to move on the next one?

Yes.

Okay, I'm just going to jump in real quick to point out that on page 5 of the bill, and it's 119554, section 1427050 covers the room cleaning workload limits and also describes, I'll give you a moment, it's again on page 5, roughly in the middle of the page, It describes what Karina was just talking about, that an employee must opt out, sorry, has an ability to opt out of team cleaning.

But there is a provision at the beginning of the last sentence in that first paragraph that says, except when required for employee safety or by law, That's the exception.

An employer may only assign multiple employees to perform a room cleaning together if the employees have agreed to perform cleaning with other employees pursuant to rules that will be issued by the director.

And I just wanted to point out that that goes to the point that you were just mentioning, Council Member, that there is some question about how one determines when it's required for for safety.

And that goes to, I guess, the very heart of the question about whether team cleaning does promote safety.

I don't know how to independently evaluate that, but I wanted to just point that out.

And we have various iterations of the printouts up here.

So can you say the section again?

It's 1427.050.

The title is Room Cleaning Workload Limits.

And it's paragraph A of that section.

And I was referring to the last sentence in that paragraph.

So what is the purpose of that clause if we don't know when it would be required for safety or by law?

What is the purpose of those words being included?

Well, from the perspective, I believe that this was ported over from the initiative.

I think this is...

No, it was not.

I was incorrect there.

Janine, if you'd like to take it.

Sure.

To the extent that I can venture a response, I think the bylaw is probably the easiest to explain, which is if, for instance, the Washington Industrial Health and Safety Act requires an employer to do certain things to ensure the safety of an employee under those laws, we want to make sure that there's no conflict between ours and theirs.

With respect to when safety is implicated, We added that because we have heard from folks over time that they do assign in teams for safety purposes, for instance, at night when there are less staff in the building.

So, wanting to acknowledge that that is a situation and that we don't want to necessarily put them in a worse off place in terms of safety.

To Dan's point, that probably requires more conversation about what we mean by that, either through rulemaking or further conversation here.

Thank you.

And obviously, statistical information and also background from other sources, you know, other cities or states matters definitely.

But I was also wondering if UNITE here could provide some insight, if they have insight from their members about, whether it does make a difference to them when they are assigned team cleaning shift versus individual shifts.

Even the feeling or the perception or the confidence of that they're safe, especially in nighttime, obviously, it's of more relevance.

But just in general, it would help to have some, because it's hard for us to speculate, but actual work experience would help us.

Even if it's anecdotal evidence, I think it would be helpful.

I think that's a great point.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

And just for the viewing public's knowledge, we did have the schedule to 1.30.

I think we know that we are probably going to go beyond that in case folks do have to leave.

I totally understand.

Hi.

Thank you.

Bye.

But in case you do have to leave, I understand.

I'm sorry that we didn't have more time planned in.

But I'm planning to stay until 2 if folks are able to.

That works for you?

Okay.

nods all around.

I may not be able to stay till 2, but I totally appreciate it.

And since I also took up some time.

No, you're great.

This is exactly what we're hoping for today.

And we'll just go ahead and continue.

We'll go ahead and turn that clock off.

That was more for my knowledge to know how much time we had.

But if folks are OK, I know everybody has a tight schedule.

We're going to continue on for the next half hour here.

Yeah, so we still have a lot of ground to cover in that next half hour, so I'll try to be quick about the remainder of this particular law.

So under the initiative, hotels were required to pay employees more when they exceeded that $5,000.

square footage of cleaning.

And so that continues with this proposed law.

It's subbing the term regular rate of pay with normal hourly rate of pay, which is going to make it easier for workers to understand and for employers to calculate.

It's not circular like the regular rate of pay is.

And then there are some exceptions to that payment that I believe were in the rules and that now are codified into this law.

So that's already been subject to notice and comment period among employers.

So with that, I think we can move on to access to medical care.

Oh, I think that's me.

OK.

All right.

So this begins on page 8 of the matrix that, again, is attachment A to the staff memo.

The employer coverage, so we're talking about access to medical care, health insurance, or equivalent payments for employees.

The employer coverage is functionally the same as it was in the initiative.

This applies to large hotels, as defined by a hotel with 100 or more rooms, and ancillary businesses with a physical presence in the hotel.

The change in employee coverage is that we have introduced an exemption for ancillary businesses that have fewer than 50 employees worldwide.

The next item, employee coverage, is...

Real quick, just on that definition, can you give us a few examples where we've used that definition of sort of small business versus large business in other areas of labor standards, especially here in Seattle?

So, 50 employees worldwide, where do we use that in other locations?

So for paid sick and safe time, it has three different sizes of employers.

It's based on full-time equivalents rather than employees.

It is the only ordinance that is based on full-time equivalents.

But it has thresholds of up to 50 FTEs, up to 250 FTEs, and then more than 250 FTEs.

And then our secure scheduling law and our minimum wage law has thresholds of large employers, 500 plus worldwide employees.

And then under that is a small employer for minimum wage.

Our commuter benefits law has a threshold of 20 employees worldwide.

What ordinance is that?

The commuter benefits law.

That's the law that requires employers to provide pre-tax commuting benefits to their staff.

So out of our eight laws, I'm guessing that's, thinking that's four that have an employee threshold requirement.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

The other change under, the one change under employee coverage I wanted to call your attention to is that the initiative applied only to low-wage employees in the hotel industry, and that was defined as those whose households have an income that is 400% or less of the poverty line.

The bill that is before you would change that to remove the requirement for low-wage employees, and it would therefore apply to all otherwise covered employees who work in large hotels or covered ancillary businesses.

Unless there are questions, I'm going to move on.

I'm going to describe the initiative first.

This has to do with what kind of pay is required to employees by their employer.

The initiative had an approach that was specific to the circumstances of each individual employee, and it had a calculation for what kind of affordable level of insurance the employer needed to pay.

to each employee that was based on the type of household and income.

And it basically said that the employer had to provide a gold level plan and that the cost to the employee could be no more than 5% of the employee's monthly pay.

In recognition of some of the reaction and testimony that Employers offered at the time that the initiative passed that this was a burdensome means to calculate for each different employee their specific circumstances, whether they were a smoker, what age they were, in addition to a variety of other circumstances.

The bills take a different tack, and they try to establish a composite dollar amount that is now called a required healthcare expenditure.

that an employer, a covered employer, has to pay to each covered employee on a monthly basis.

That dollar amount ranges from $560 per month for an individual employee, again, no matter what their age and no matter whether they're a smoker or other kind of particulars that would affect their ability to get health insurance at different dollar amounts.

It ranges from $560 for an individual who doesn't have a spouse or domestic partner and doesn't have dependent children to $1,680 for an employee who has both a domestic partner or a spouse and dependent children.

And there are four categories I've mentioned, the bottom and the top tiers.

Those dollar figures were arrived at by doing an actuarial analysis of the individual health plans private health plans that are available to individuals and their households on the, make sure I get the name right, the gold level plan that are available in King County on the Washington State Health Benefit Exchange.

So that's the price of health insurance to people who are going themselves to go buy the health insurance.

An employer can meet the required healthcare expenditure for each month, either entirely in extra pay to the employee or providing health insurance that meet gold level equivalent standard.

I'm sorry, I'm going to scrap that.

They can either pay all in extra pay or all in health insurance, and it doesn't have to meet the gold standard.

It can be any kind of health insurance.

But the amount has to, if it can only be in health insurance, that has to be an amount that exceeds or meets the required health care expenditure.

Or they can provide health insurance and then top off to meet the balance in extra pay.

So they can do a combination of health insurance and extra pay.

I know that's a lot of information.

Are there any questions?

I'll just chime in here real quick.

This is an area that I'm going to continue to do some research on.

For me, there was two components that really stood out.

One is we really want to make sure that the workers in the hotel industry have high quality health insurance.

from some of the workers today and in previous meetings is the amount of injuries that they're sustaining.

One person today talked about their shoulder.

Others have talked about their backs.

At one meeting we went to, we heard about one worker, one worker who had two miscarriages in a very short period of time due to the strenuous amount of work, which we are addressing through the workplace requirements, but also access to quality, affordable healthcare is critical for addressing and preventing some of those injuries.

A, we want it to be high quality.

B, the big area of concern that I had was that there potentially was a disincentive from some of these workers to take the healthcare under the previous initiative because of the cash option.

And we have seen in other industries under the Affordable Care Act some unscrupulous employers basically waiving the dollar amount in front of the low-wage workers versus healthcare.

We want workers to have healthcare.

And so my desire here is to strike the right balance between incentivizing, creating, and requiring high-quality healthcare and getting away from the disincentive of the cash.

That's a really important balance to strike.

I'll also say, and this should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway.

We wouldn't be in this situation had we had universal health care.

Employers wouldn't be in the situation of constantly trying to figure out how to pay for that health care.

And workers, especially those who are union workers, wouldn't be in the position of constantly having to put health care on the bargaining table and trade that away for wages have we had universal health care.

So I'm hoping that, you know, this continues to underscore the commonality there for why we need Medicare for all, universal health care, single payer.

And in the meantime, I'm not quite sure that we have gotten that right formula yet.

I'll just signal for myself.

As you were explaining it and as I was reading it, again, the individual spoke this morning, the actuary, there is a difference between the individual market and the large group market.

And in sort of hearing the explanation, I think we need to go back and double check on cost for individual market versus large group.

That's a very real distinction between what the cost is.

And as we were thinking about this language, and the four categories, I didn't think about that.

So I'm just acknowledging that this is an area that I'm interested in continuing to explore other policy solutions that meet those goals, but not compromising on the high quality healthcare, the accessibility and the affordability of it, and making sure that there's not a unnecessarily or unintentional disincentive to take the healthcare.

I would only add to that that I think your verbalization of the realities of our health insurance market is an acknowledgment of the fact that we recognize that it is expensive both on the patient side of the equation and certainly on the purchasing the product side of the equation.

I think one of, you know, just to be really clear, I think one of the other policy priorities that we have and need to address is to also recognize that we don't want to create an undue burden in terms of cost on employers who actually want to provide health care coverage.

And so we've had some conversations around Is there an opportunity for us to continue to have policy conversations around where we set that limit and what we're sort of tying it to to make sure that again, we're not gonna generate unintended consequences in terms of the ultimate policy priority, which is to make sure that we're providing this segment of workers access to high quality, affordable, accessible healthcare, which is really at the core of it all.

Yeah, absolutely.

We wouldn't be in this place if we had universal healthcare.

In fact, statewide also we should be having a serious conversation about Medicare for all because it's possible to do it statewide.

And the movement in California was attempting to do that, and I think that that should be an actual topic of conversation, and I totally agree.

That should be connected to all of this.

And also in terms of the What the legislation, whether in the language of the bill itself or through the rulemaking, either way, what it says about the healthcare, I was wondering also if Dan could just go through that a little bit again, because it was, I couldn't, didn't quite catch all of what it would say.

And also, if we can, and I think we all agree here at the table that Also keeping in mind that many of the workers we're talking about here are, and correct me if I'm wrong, but they're employed by large employers who I think compared to very small employers are able to afford decent, to pay decent healthcare to their workers.

keeping that in the mix as well in order to come to what we think is the appropriate measure of healthcare for the workers that would be mandated by the legislation through the bill or through the rulemaking.

I think that keeping that in mind is also important.

I'm going to take another run at it.

I think I fumbled it through the first time.

I'll probably fumble through the second time.

I think you said the insurance would not require it to be gold level.

That's where I'm...

Yes, thank you.

So let me take another try at it.

The required health care expenditure amount is keyed off of how much a gold level plan would cost on the exchange.

recognizing that employers are not buying their health insurance on the exchange, we still needed a tie to some kind of a benchmark.

We tied to four composite rates for a gold-level health plan on the individual exchange in King County.

for people who are seeking health care in King County, again, at the gold level.

And it depends on whether they are an individual, if they are an individual who has no dependents but does have a spouse or a domestic partner, or has only children but not a domestic partner, or has both.

So those are the four different categories, and they range from about $560 for an individual The specific dollars are about $952 for an individual plus a spouse, $1,120 for an individual plus dependent children, or $1,680 for an employee who has both categories.

So that's the dollar amount that the employer is required to spend The way that the employer spends is the employer's choice.

They can either provide entirely extra pay cash to the employee.

or they can provide some kind of healthcare, and they can buy their own healthcare, and it can be bronze, it could be gold, it could be, I don't know what the other choices are, but silver, I think.

Or they can pay a combination.

So they can pay some of their required dollar amount that I talked about, 560 to 1680, in extra pay, and some in some form of health insurance.

That's up to the employer.

And then as the chair was describing, there are then opportunities for the employee to opt out and say, I don't really want that kind of insurance.

And there are different provisions for what happens in that circumstance.

But only if it's equal or better insurance that they already have.

So they can only opt out of the entire bill if they already have a gold equivalent plan themselves.

And then there are other provisions for what happens if the type of insurance that the employer offered, one of the options they have for meeting their required monthly expenditure level, if it is deemed to be unaffordable to the employee, and that is a calculation which is provided in the ordinance.

So just a little extra, because I'm glad you double checked on this.

This is, I think, a very important distinction between individual market versus large group market.

And when we talk about the gold standard for the individual market, we're really talking about an 80% actuarial value, right?

So I do think that this is an area for us to do additional research.

When we look at the large group market plans that are currently being offered, for example, in King County, there should be a way for us to do an analysis of which of the plans are being offered in the large group employer coverage are meeting that 80% actuarial value.

We use these, you know, metallic tier names over and over, but the intent is to make sure that it is reaching that actuarial value.

Many of our large employers, for example, prior to the ACA, they were offering health coverage at 90% actuarial value, and the unintended consequence was that For example, in some of the grocery industries, we heard of examples where people were going into the bargaining table, throwing down pictures of President Obama and saying, well, if 60% actual value was good enough for your president, then that's what we're going to offer now.

That was the unintended consequence.

But large group employers actually have the benefit of pulling together more workers, more employees.

and a larger group is good for rates, that will decrease rates.

That is also part of the premise behind Medicare for All.

That is the entire premise, right?

So I am very sympathetic and I want to acknowledge that this is an area that we will continue to do work on, the individual who was the actuary who came and spoke.

some of the folks who've been calling us in the last few days who have brought this issue up.

There is a real, I think, analysis that we should be able to do around large group markets with the equivalent is of an 80% actual value in the large group market in our region.

That's more the goal versus saying the dollar amount per se.

So flagging for folks in full transparency, this is an area where we'll continue to do some more work to reach that better quality threshold.

Unintentionally, we don't end up allowing the employers to the hotel industry to undercut the workers, you know, the more specific we are about the language, the language I think the better for the workers.

I think that's right and I think it's also fair to say we also don't want to have a number that was based on a separate market that is maybe not in comparison apples to apples to what it actually costs to provide health coverage at that higher quality, 80% extra value than is currently being offered in large.

I mean I think at the end of the day we want to create an incentive and a real possibility for the coverage to be provided and And so everything that we can do to generate that, that would be great.

I haven't, in the public testimony even, I didn't hear anyone say carte blanche, I don't want to provide my workers healthcare.

What I'm hearing employers say is I'm nervous that the cost is going to be so prohibitive that I won't be able to do that.

I think there's a way for us to sort of do the analysis as suggested by our subject matter expert, Chair Mosqueda, and really dig into sort of how do we create that pathway to make sure that it is gonna be ultimately fulfill what I think the policy goal is here, which is making sure that the workers actually have access to this coverage.

I just want to make note, I mentioned this yesterday when I received a briefing from central staff, but for other committee members' purposes, I am a little bit concerned about the way that creating a disincentive for an employer to offer cash The way it's structured, I could see a scenario in which somebody, an employee is, the result is that they have to pay for a plan that they can't afford because of that 20% mark.

That 20% out of pocket could be an awful lot of money to somebody's monthly income.

So I have an interest in looking at that number.

Does it help to provide clarification on that point?

Okay.

Dan, do you want to do that?

Would you like me to?

Please.

Okay.

Well, so what I'm understanding Councilmember Harreld to be discussing is an option or a situation where a hotel is not required to make this monthly health care expenditure and that can happen if the employer offers a health insurance plan And if the plan, as Dan was saying, has an affordable premium, then the ordinance is saying if the employee says I don't want that plan and I don't want to pay that affordable premium, then the employee is opting out of everything.

The employee is giving up their rights to get the cash instead.

This opt-out is then incentivizing employees to say yes to the health insurance.

But what Councilmember Herbold is questioning is why is the employee's contribution set at 20% of the monthly health care expenditure rate for a single employee?

So the way it is now, for a single employee, the employer has to pay $560 a month at least.

20% of that is $112.

So as long as the premium is $112 and the health care insurance plan meets that 560 mark, then the employee has to say yes or forfeit the right to the cash.

And so what I'm hearing you question is, why 20%?

Why not a different amount?

I guess you're thinking it should be lower.

That's my question.

So the very quick answer that I would also offer is, at the actuarial value of a gold plan is 80%.

80% played for by the employer and through the plan.

20% picked up by the patient or the consumer.

So in the ideal world, it would be more like a 90, 95% actuarial value, which is a platinum plus plan.

But 80% is basically what the employer what the insurer will pay for and then you as the consumer pay the other 20% in out-of-pocket expenses, premiums, deductibles, etc.

So that's sort of where that number comes from.

I hear you though because I think it's less about the actuarial value amount and the more on the impact on the individual and the percentage of the income.

That's what I think.

And it used to be that you couldn't charge the wages of a

a hotel worker, I think we should take into consideration.

And before the ACA was, you know, gutted, not that it was as robust as people believe it was in the beginning, because it was already a compromise, before that was even gutted, it used to be that you could not offer a health plan that was more than 9.5% of the individual's income, that that was deemed unaffordable.

And so then the employer would get dinged on that.

Now some of this has changed, but I hear your point and let's continue to look at it, especially as it impacts the individual worker.

So we have about 10 more minutes.

I'm always happy to continue to extend, but can you tell us a little bit more about what's left to cover here?

Yeah, I think we have the one remaining bill to cover, and I think it'll go pretty, I can cover it pretty quickly and answer any questions.

Okay, and if it wasn't clear from that last conversation, there will be more discussion around healthcare as we go forward.

Okay, so page 10 of the matrix covers the hotel employees job retention bill.

Both the employer coverage and the employee coverage are largely the same in the bill compared to the initiative, initiative 124. There is one change that I'd call your attention.

Similar to the discussion for the previous bill, there is an exemption for small businesses from the bill if they are ancillary hotel businesses that have 20 employees worldwide or fewer.

20. Yeah, that's different than the in the health care one it was it was 50 in this bill it is 20. All of the other provisions are substantially the same as in the initiative.

A hotel, I'm sorry, an outgoing employer that changes hands and there's a new owner.

must provide a preferential hiring list to the incoming employer, the new owner of the business.

There's no change there.

And the incoming employer must hire from the preferential hiring list for a period of 180 days.

If the employer accepts a job offer, the employee must retain the employee for no less than 90 days.

and can discharge the employee for just cause during this time period.

I think there's no other substantial changes.

That's the end of our review of the four pieces of legislation.

It's just us left, so there are no questions.

So no more questions over here.

Did you guys have anything else that you wanted to add in terms of the context of the bill or overarching comments?

Okay, um councilman gonzalez before I sort of wrap us up anything from you.

Sure.

I would just um, Uh again, thank you, uh, counselor mosquito for shepherding through this conversation in your committee and making space for um this conversation I know our committee schedules are all really busy.

So, thank you um, I thought today was a really good conversation and this is I think exactly what we wanted to see happen is begin the public-facing process of, you know, really discussing and debating some of the remaining policy issues and some of the policy choices we've already made.

You know, we've been having six months worth of back room conversations that have included Union, Unite Here, and also hotel workers, but also internal stakeholders from the mayor's office to OLS to city attorney's office to our office staff.

I mean, the list kind of goes on.

And so I think to me it's really important to make sure that we're having these conversations in an open setting like this and that we have sort of an opportunity to hear from a broader set of groups and stakeholders to shepherd this work through.

And I hope folks that are in the audience heard both of us signal that we understand that there are more deeper policy analysis conversations and exercises that need to be completed in order for us to get this over the finish line in the next And we're both very willing, of course, to continue to engage in those conversations.

And those conversations will be first and foremost, I think, guided by the ultimate policy goals and values that we have articulated multiple times at this table and in the press conference before we came in here today.

So looking forward to those conversations and next steps.

Yeah, absolutely.

And thanks to all of you.

I mean, you all have been so amazing and working really, really hard on this, as have Brianna Thomas in my office and Sejal Parikh in your office.

So huge shout out to all of you who have been really rolling up your sleeves and spending countless hours.

I understand that you have all met together at least 22 times in the last six months, and that's probably and a low-balled member, so really appreciate all the time you all are spending together on this issue.

Absolutely.

So I wanted to first thank you, Council Member Gonzalez, and your team, led by Brianna Thomas, for all of your work on this.

Sejal Parikh, our Chief of Staff and Lead on Labor, has spent endless hours on this with you all.

So thank you so much to your team and to the folks on my team as well, especially Sejal.

I did just want to give you additional thanks.

So thanks to Dan Eder, Deputy Director of Central Staff.

Janae Jan, Policy Manager at the Office of Labor Standards.

Thank you guys for being here at the table and for your first day for being here.

Karina Bull from Central Staff and walking us through this document.

We did see Adrian.

Hi, Adrian.

You're still here.

Adrian Thompson, Kyla Blair, Sabrina Bollet.

from the mayor's office, thanks to your team as well for your constant engagement in this policy issue area, and also the entire city attorney's office.

I understand that the entire office at some point has actually been engaged with our teams on the legality and the various questions that we brought forward.

So thanks so much.

You know, Dana, Stephanie, and Joseph have done a really good job as well of helping to be at previous meetings and this meeting and earlier today as we talked about the rollout of this legislation.

So thanks to our communications team and some external stakeholders that we heard from today.

Thank you, Unite Here, Local 8, The Hospitality Association, ACLU of Washington, REWA, One America, Puget Sound SAGE, the Martin Luther King County Labor Council.

There will be more things coming up.

But, you know, everybody who stuck around for our full two hours, really appreciate it and want to underscore what you've heard from us today.

We will be again discussing this on July 11th and then July 18th with the possibility of another meeting if we need to.

But I think some of the issues that we're hearing are overlapping nicely and we'll continue to do some research with all of you.

Just a reminder, we do have a public hearing that will be just focused on public hearing and we'll have these materials available.

We'll have staff on hand in case, from our team, in case there are questions.

But really this is a chance for us to hear directly from the community involved.

and want to hear your thoughts.

If you do need child care, please let us know.

Ashley.Harrison at Seattle.gov can provide us with child care that will be free.

We also will offer discounted parking at Sea Park, which is on 5th and James for $5 beginning at 430. And so let us know if you do come and you need to park.

We're happy to get you that discounted parking.

That is a special committee hearing just to make sure that there's folks who can come in the evening, as you heard from the hotel workers, and I'm sure for the managers as well, who are very busy during the day.

We want to make time in the evening to have that conversation.

Are we going to have translation available, too?

We could definitely have translation.

We'll work on that.

Let's do that.

In Spanish?

Okay.

We will work on that on our office to make sure that that equipment's available as well in real time.

And then just for the good of the order, the next regularly scheduled Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee was on July 4th, my birthday, but we are not going to be here due to the holiday.

It's America's birthday.

way of celebrating me?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's fireworks for your special birthday.

I did used to think those were all for me.

That was a sad day.

I don't know.

I wouldn't say that they aren't.

So we'll be moving that regularly scheduled meeting to Thursday July 11th at 9 30 here in council chambers and want to advise folks we will have a few items on the agenda including the hotel worker industry standards legislation and discussion of possible issue identification is our way of talking about possible amendments to come.

There will not be a final vote that day.

Just want to underscore that for anyone who was concerned about that.

But in addition to that, we'll have the Domestic Worker Standard Board appointments, Domestic Worker Standard Board update and rulemaking, Office of Labor Standards, Race and Social Justice Initiative, possible vote on the provider wage inflation adjustment, and legislation and the notice of intent to sell ordinance.

That sounds like a full day's worth of activities.

So we will try to make sure that everything is timed well.

And if we need to adjust other items, we will do so.

With that, seeing no other comments, thank you for your incredible work walking us through this presentation.

And we're getting out two minutes early according to my new time.

Thank you everybody for being here.

Really appreciate it.

And we'll see you on Tuesday night at 5.30.