Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers’ Rights Committee Public Hearing 7/2/19

So good evening, everyone.

Today is July 2nd, 2019, and the special committee meeting of the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.

It's 5.03.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, the chair of the committee, and I'm joined by Councilmember Bagshaw, Councilmember Pacheco, and Councilmember Gonzalez.

Thank you all for being here.

I know that more folks are probably on their way.

I want to say thank you to the incredibly full, I understand, at-capacity audience that we have upstairs and downstairs, the security officers.

And thank you so much for being here into the evening.

They have informed us that there's folks downstairs in the overflow room as well.

So as folks filter out, we're going to bring more folks in.

If you have given your public testimony and you need to take off or can watch the rest of it from downstairs, we'd encourage folks to switch out as we try to get more folks coming in the room.

I want to say a huge appreciation for everybody joining.

We know that people have full-time jobs plus more.

A lot of people are working day and night in this industry.

So we know that there's no optimal time to have a conversation.

But thank you for making the attempt to be here this evening and to share your time with us.

Councilmember Gonzalez and I are the co-sponsors of this legislation and we really appreciate the feedback that we've received so far and all of the council over the last few years have been engaged on this issue.

Thank you Councilmember Sawant for joining us as well.

Happy to have you.

Thank you for being here.

I also want to let folks know that there is Spanish interpretation.

So just let us know if you need a Spanish interpretation.

And I'm assured that there's folks downstairs that this is being broadcast to as well.

If anybody downstairs needs interpretation, please let us know.

If anybody needs hearing assistance, we also have the monitors up here.

Aaron House, who is our clerk tonight, can help you with that.

And for anybody who needs parking assistance, we do have a discounted rate since it's in the evening, recognizing sometimes everybody has different mobility needs.

And for those who needed to drive, we do have parking assistance.

It's only $5 at Sea Park.

And we do have that parking lot that closes at 10 p.m., so we will get folks out of here by then.

Let us know if you need a parking voucher.

I want to say thank you to the folks who've joined us, including the interpreters.

We have Pablo Spevuda and Allison Oster, if I'm not mistaken, who've helped us with the interpretation.

They were here last year as we worked on the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Thanks again for being here today.

I want to let folks know that if you have child care needs, we have also made that available for folks at no cost.

Just let us know if you do have child care needs, if you're downstairs and you need child care, please let us know.

Si alguien está aquí que necesita una persona a cuidar su niño cuando están aquí, hay personas que pueden ayudar y es gratis.

So let us know if you need any assistance for child care.

With that, we know that we have a lot of people who are signed up to testify.

I've checked in with a few folks who've helped to organize turnout for today.

We're going to do a minute and a half, and I know that's different from the two-minute normal.

I want to give folks a heads up on that because sometimes when I've been in the audience and had 30 seconds cut off, it really changes things up for me.

So I wanted to give folks an early heads up that we're going to do a minute and a half for public testimony.

Oh, I need to slow down.

I'm sorry, I do talk fast.

So for the interpretation, I'm going to slow down a little bit.

So we're going to do a minute and a half instead of two minutes.

Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez.

With that, I just have a few opening comments.

I want to make sure that we are very clear as well about the upcoming process that we've included for Seattle City Council's consideration of this legislation.

This comes on the heels of us having discussions over the last few months, both with industry and with workers, talking about the passage of Initiative 124, talking about the fact that it passed by 77% of the voters in Seattle.

Proud to be a voter in the city of Seattle that worked to support getting that over the ballot.

And also proud to now be here to talk about the lessons learned.

Implementation's critical.

As we think about implementations, what are the lessons learned that we have to now go back and look at the legislation in front of us?

We know that this is disproportionately affecting workers who are people of color, women, immigrant workers.

And we will have an opportunity here to make sure that the will of the voters is carried out and that we also make it implementable, workable for the various folks who are working in the industry.

Really excited to hear from all of you and I want to just sort of get to the heart of the public testimony here and I want to see if there's any other council members who have anything else to say before we launch into.

Yes.

Thank you, Councilmember Bagshaw.

Before we get into the public testimony, just as a reminder for folks, we have a full schedule in front of us.

And I'll start at the very beginning.

On March 21st, we had our overview of the status of Initiative 124. There is a memo from central staff that's been available in the public record and we can make that available for folks here as well if folks are interested.

On April 4th, we had an opportunity to hear from the hotel workers and their stories about working in the industry.

On May 2nd, we had a chance to hear from the industry managers and their best practices and some of their thoughts on Initiative 124 and the process for moving forward in terms of recommendations.

On June 24th, the legislation was referred to the full committee for consideration.

And on June 27th, we had the opportunity to have a full discussion in our committee hearing that was last week and have a discussion on the legislation.

Today, we're having a public hearing in the evening to try to accommodate a full room like we see today.

And we will also have a discussion about the legislation and issue identification, which is our way of sort of identifying various possible policies and amendments that people may want to flag for the future.

That will be on July 11th.

Again, colleagues, it's next Thursday.

After that, we're going to have another discussion on July 18th.

And then we will not be potentially having a vote until August 1st, adding an additional week, with the opportunity then to come back in August and have a final vote.

Probably that second Monday prior to us going on leave for a short recess in August.

So I just want to give folks that update and let folks know that that information can also be posted on our website.

Thank you for that reminder.

Any other comments, colleagues?

I'm going to have to excuse myself for one hour.

I apologize.

I have a 6.30 meeting up in the U District.

Thank you, Council Member Bagshaw.

Any other comments?

Okay, great.

So, Erin, if you could, please, let's put a minute and 30 seconds on the clock and we'll get started.

We're going to do our best to make sure that we go a handful of industry panelists and then worker, handful of industry panelists, worker, and go through the process that way.

Thank you so much for everybody for being here.

And the first person to sign up is, and I'm going to call a few so folks can line up, that would be really great, Anna Vendray from Hilton, Dan Austin, and Jessica Horton.

And just make sure as you all come to the microphone, get really close to this microphone right here.

And there's two different heights.

And you're all welcome to line up.

And there's two microphones in case one wants to take one and one wants to take the other.

Good evening.

Good evening and just get real close if you can.

Real close.

My name is Anne Vande Hei.

I'm the director of sales and marketing for the Hilton Seattle.

My first job in the industry was as a sales secretary back in the day when we were still called secretaries.

I have been in the industry 35 years.

And I've worked in a number of different capacities on property, at a number of hotels, of varied brands.

And I have also worked in global sales and as a regional director of sales for an ownership management company.

We care deeply about our employees, their health.

their welfare and safety.

That's why I and my colleagues enthusiastically supported statewide panic button legislation and provide them to our staff.

We were proud when that passed statewide.

So why is it part of this legislation?

People and businesses are affected.

Why the rush?

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dan.

Dan, followed by Jessica and then Linda Morton.

Thanks for having me.

This is Dan Austin.

I'm owner of Peel and Press.

We've got Dave Montour, the owner of West 5 in West Seattle, District 1. And welcome to West Seattle, I understand.

I'm here today speaking on behalf of the Government Affairs Committee of the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

I've operated my business in West Seattle coming up on close to five years with a 4.1-year retention rate for my employees.

If we were talking about panic buttons only, I wouldn't be here today.

The wrap up of the ancillary businesses is my concern.

So businesses being added in that are not hotel operated businesses, lease space from operate within.

I don't understand why we're adding small businesses that are not in the legislation that was passed with 70 plus percent.

We're adding additionally to it.

That's a big concern of mine.

Looking at the healthcare expenditure that would be required from those people, $1,680 is $27 an hour on a 20 hour employee.

that would immediately take my business if I ran those numbers within a hotel, I would go from profitable to negative $38,000 in that year.

That is not an expense to be taken by small business.

Again, if we're talking about panic buttons, full support.

I support the legislation that was passed previous.

I don't understand and I've not heard an argument for why small businesses are being brought into this legislation.

I'd look forward to hearing from that.

We're having it removed.

Thank you very much.

Welcome Jessica.

Welcome, Jessica, followed by Linda, and then Masaba Hemery.

And I really apologize for any mispronunciation.

That's my bad.

Thank you, Jessica.

Good evening.

My name is Jessica Horton, and I'm the director of people support for the Pan Pacific Hotel in South Lake Union.

As a graduate of Seattle University, I've worked in various different industries in Seattle to include law enforcement, social service, education, and supply chain management.

I've been in hospitality for the last two years.

We care deeply about the health and welfare and safety of our associates.

As such, we provide top-tier health care coverage to our employees, which exceeds the gold-level standard offered on the exchange.

We cover 89% of the cost of the associate coverage only and 80% of the cost for family coverage.

Despite this, this piece of legislation requires an additional cash expenditure from information taken from the exchange whose rates are not negotiated, nor are they accurately depicted at the cost of gold level.

Additionally, overtime requirements proposed are nonsensical.

If an employee exceeds the mandatory workload by a single square foot, we pay overtime for all hours worked.

Tell me one other industry that pays overtime for the entire day's work.

I can tell you that from my experience in government, non-profit, and big box supply chains, they certainly do not.

By passing this legislation, you are crippling the hospitality industry and especially small businesses.

Thank you.

Linda, that's a hard act to follow.

Following you will be Masab, and then also two people after that, Stefan Moritz and Jian Zheng.

Welcome, Linda.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm Linda D'Alello-Morton, and I am co-owner of Terra Plata Restaurant, and I serve as the president of Seattle Restaurant Alliance.

Seattle Restaurant Alliance supports more than 2,700 restaurants in the city of Seattle, most of which are small businesses.

Over the last several years, we've been extremely concerned about the barriers that have been imposed on small businesses in the city of Seattle.

I'm here today because this legislation you're discussing isn't just about hotels.

It's about small businesses and restaurants like mine.

I'm also privileged to serve on Mayor Durkan's Small Business Advisory Council, along with you, Council Member Mosqueda.

And with all this time spending drafting this legislation, we've never had this issue brought to our attention for issues or feedback.

You know this impacts small businesses, you wrote the legislation that way, yet the decision was made not to seek input from the small business community.

The legislation puts significant health care expenditure requirements on restaurants and other small businesses far exceeding what's required by the ACA, simply because they lease space from a hotel.

The expense to these small businesses is up to $1,680 per part-time employee.

That's quite excessive.

That means a restaurant or small business will have completely different requirements if they're in a hotel rather than an office building across the street.

The small business community stands together with the restaurant community.

The restaurant business is a very tough business.

I can tell you that from experience.

And it's also a very important part to the heart of our city.

Linda, can I have you wrap up for us, and we'll take your written testimony?

OK.

That sounds great.

What'd you say?

I said if you can wrap up for us, and then we'll take your written testimony.

I'll wrap it up right away.

Basically, I just am asking that the final legislation does not include small businesses and restaurants in the same category as corporate hotels, or either small hotels and family-owned hotels in the same category as corporate hotels.

We should be encouraging small and immigrant family businesses to thrive, and this just does the opposite.

Thank you very much.

Following you will be Stefan Yan and then Sean Vink from Romeos.

Hi, my name is Massad Bilhimri.

I'm the Director of Operations at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront.

I've been in this industry for over 15 years, worked various departments, various roles.

Most of my time has been spent in the Seattle areas, small hotels, large hotels.

And I don't think I've met any leader in this industry that does not care about their associates.

They are an extension of our family.

We care deeply for them.

We come to work every single day to interact with them, to be with them.

Sometimes we are with our associates longer than we are with our own family members.

And our establishment already had panic buttons in place, and we're very happy that it went statewide.

But we need to realize that this is a lot more than just panic buttons.

I think it's made to be that it is about panic buttons, but as we've heard today, everybody does support panic buttons.

There's no argument there.

This law does require arbitrary cash.

We are encouraging people to decline healthcare coverage in order to put cash in their pocket.

And I don't think that's what it was intended for, and I don't think that's what the voters wanted when they voted.

But that is what we are encouraging associates to do.

I think that we need to look at the quality of the coverage, not just the cost.

With regards to overtime, I think that we just want to be in line with all other companies, all other industries.

We want to make sure that anybody that does work overtime is paid for that overtime, but I think we're punishing the establishment for the full day.

And that's my time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Stefan Moritz, followed by Yan Deng, followed by Sean Vink, and then Shannon Sharon.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm not sure if I can get through all of this in a minute and a half, and I want to give a shout out to all the folks who worked all day today and are in the overflow room downstairs watching this hearing on a screen, which You know, it's unfortunately a little bit symbolic.

So good evening.

I want to thank you for the work that you have put into this and the commitment that you have shown to protecting hotel workers and to implementing and caring for the vision that voters approved with Initiative 124. Workers are here tonight to share their experiences and to demand action.

In 2016, voters heard hotel workers' stories and they acted, voting 77% to approve Initiative 124. In the wake of the Christmas Eve appellate court decisions, leaders at the city heard from workers and you acted, and that is just really, really appreciated.

The four ordinances now being discussed reflect deep listening on part of the city.

They carry forth the key provisions of Initiative 124, protections from workplace violence and harassment, limits on housekeeping workload, expanded access to affordable family health care and job security.

Two elements of the original initiative that are of crucial importance and have been preserved in the legislation as introduced are coverage of ancillary hotel businesses and the expectation that workers be able to access gold-level equivalent health care.

Given the staggering public investment in promoting business travel and tourism in Seattle and the massive profits accruing to the private equity companies, real estate investment trusts, and other owners of Seattle Hotel Real Estate, coverage of ancillary hotel businesses ensures this public investment goes to creating more good jobs and captures more of the profitability of Seattle's hotels in the form of benefits for Seattle workers.

Indexing the dollar amount for the required health care expenditure under the legislation to the cost of a gold-level plan helps to ensure that workers will be able to afford a quality health care plan with a deductible and other associated costs that are low enough so that workers will actually be able to get to the doctor when they need to.

The proposed legislation also reflects...

Stephan, if you could wrap up for us and then we're also happy to take your written testimony.

We'll submit that in writing but you know I just have to say that this is the right thing to do and we really appreciate your leadership on this issue.

Thank you.

For anybody who does have written testimony, we're happy to take that written testimony, and we'll make a little packet for all of the council colleagues.

And I know, Linda, you had some written testimony, too, so.

Yan Deng, followed by Sean Vink, and then Shannon Sharon, and adding Braxton Myers.

Is Yan up here?

Sir, why don't we go ahead with you, and then if Yan is available.

Is that you, Yan?

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Hi, everyone.

Can you pull this a little bit closer to you?

You should be able to pull it down.

Thank you.

My name is Yan.

I work at the Seattle Hilton Hotel.

I'm the housekeeper.

I'm here to let you guys know that health insurance is very important for our family and me, so we have a health insurance at my hotel because we are a union hotel, but my sister, they don't have the good health insurance, they are hotel too.

So there's I-124, that's a health insurance, protecting is very good for their family.

So that's why I'm coming here to let you guys know.

So this I-134, the law is really important to get passes into union worker or non-union worker, both.

It's the same thing.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks for waiting, Sean.

Followed by Sean will be Shannon Braxton and then Destiny Sund.

Okay, my last name is Werk.

I'm so sorry about that.

Fine.

So I'm Sean Werk.

I'm the owner for Romeo's Pizza.

Romeo's has been in Seattle for almost 39 years.

I got into it 12 years ago.

And we are on the ground floor of Homewood Suites, ancillary business, as we say.

Now, certainly, but we were never informed of this.

I just found out a couple of days ago.

What I want to say is I understand all the employees I have been with me for all these years.

So everybody is like family to us.

We take care of them.

and I understand they need health care, but we're a small business and that means I start 8 in the morning, I'll end up 11 p.m.

My kids are now older.

I usually see them only when they're sleeping and we try really hard to work hard.

The Proposal here is basically I get it it it's just saying that we need to provide health care now The question comes is I was doing some math.

I have 12 employees and one of my locations at $560 we are paying them $80,000 a year in benefits and at 1680 we are paying them $240,000 a year and I myself don't make that kind of money So the question really for you is where is this money come from?

Where do you think the money comes from?

And how do you answer that?

In 12 years in this city, I have not seen a city has done anything for us small businesses.

You guys think that we just come and go, but we employ people.

I understand if you want to, you know, for corporate businesses, we understand it's a higher profit.

For us, it is not.

And we charge, what, $12 or $13 for a for a full sandwich, and I'm pretty sure if I start charging you $20, you will not come to my place and have that sandwich.

So I will wrap up.

I get that.

I just, again, want to see when this initiative started, you guys said that this was for safety.

All of a sudden, this is healthcare, and you're asking money from us.

How do we come up with all this money?

That means we are forced to close all our businesses and you guys are pushing us out of this city.

That is not right when we have been a part of this city for a long time.

We are small businesses and we need to be taken in that consideration.

So just help us in that sense.

Thank you for being here.

I appreciate it.

Shannon followed by Braxton followed by Destiny Sun and then Sonia Guevara.

Good evening everyone my name is Shannon Sharon and I am a board member with the Seattle Hotel Association.

I'm also the managing director for Hotel Sorrento.

And I started my career as a bus person.

It was called a bus boy at the time.

I've been a food server.

I've worked as a host, front desk, worked my way up.

And I feel very proud about my ascension and the experience I have.

And in that experience, that comes with understanding what goes into every single category of job, because I've done every job.

with the exception of engineering.

So that 20 years experience has brought me a little bit of perspective.

So in the last three years, my perspective is that I have met with everyone sitting at the table with the exception of Councilperson Sawant.

I've met with you.

I've written probably 30, 40, 50 letters.

I have given you my very best and honest and truthful opportunity to really show you and tell you how we work in our industry.

Because through this process, we have not sincerely been included.

We've been invited to meetings where there was copious notes taken.

And then when the rules came out, there was really no identification or representation for what we needed.

And the solutions that we really brought forth that were genuine, earnest, and helpful.

And so as we look at this now, this brand new piece of legislation, it is though the milestones and the markers have once again unequivocally been moved and expanded.

I think that this new brief is arbitrary and I think it has requires another genuine sit down where we really care about what we're saying.

We work in tandem as a group.

There is a pathway, but that does require that you understand the implications and impacts of our business, and that includes the financial ramifications.

and care about that because that trickle down that directly correlates to small business is direct.

So I ask that you think about small businesses and large businesses as you charge your course.

Thank you.

Braxton, followed by Destiny, followed by Sonia, followed by Rose, Mary, Alegría.

And if folks can try to keep within the minute and 30, I know it's hard and we will have more opportunities for testimony.

And I apologize in advance for not allowing the full two.

So thank you so much for being here, Braxton, and sorry to keep you waiting.

I'll do my best.

Thank you.

So my name is Braxton Myers.

I represent the family that owns the Quality Inn and Suites down near the Space Needle.

This property is owned by a family that immigrated to the United States as first-generation Korean immigrants in 1976. The patriarch of the family put himself through college and created his own business in New Orleans as an import-export business for jewelry.

Unfortunately, Katrina hit, and it wiped out all of his stores.

He lost everything.

And when he was waiting for his check from his insurance company, his insurance company went bankrupt.

He left New Orleans penniless and got a loan from his family to buy a small property in California.

Since then, he's built his business and was able to sell two properties in California, including his personal home, to buy a hotel in downtown Seattle.

I want to make sure everyone on this committee understands that not every hotel in the city is owned by a large corporation.

We are not owned by Hilton Hotels.

We are a franchisee of Choice Hotels.

We're a family-owned business, and we always and forever will be.

These types of legislations do not just affect large multinational corporations.

They affect families.

They affect family-owned businesses.

I take personal offense to the fact that every time Initiative 124 is talked about in the media, it's presented as something to protect employees from their employers.

I'm the employer that you're referring to having to protect the employees from.

I challenge you to come to my hotel and ask any one of my employees whether or not they feel they need to be protected from me as an employer.

I can guarantee you they don't.

I'm very, very, very passionate about this situation because the minute that this bill passes with the insurance legislation intact, this costs our business an additional $876,000 a year.

And if it passes inclusive of all the initiatives with 124, It costs us an additional 1.26 million dollars.

That renders our business insolvent and bankrupt.

Period.

That's not before depreciation, that's true dollars and cents.

This renders our family business that they've worked for 45 years to be able to amass an amount of money to be able to purchase and operate completely insolvent overnight.

Thank you, Braxton.

Thank you.

So welcome.

Thank you, Destiny, followed by Destiny Estonia, Rosemary Alegria, followed by...

Oh, I'm so sorry, from Laleh.

I'll find out.

Anna, maybe you can help me.

Welcome.

Thank you.

I'm Destiny Sun, and I'm the owner of The Confectional.

I'm here on behalf of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance, which represents 2,700 restaurants, most of which are small businesses.

The Confectional opened in Pike Place Market in 2006. Since then, we've survived multiple new city laws imposed on its business community by increasing the cost of our product.

streamlining our labor and unfortunately cutting hours.

The legislation you're considering will impact restaurants throughout the city by simply having a hotel as a landlord you're proposing including small businesses in what you're calling the hotel workers legislation and this doesn't make sense.

We all support making sure the hard-working employees in Seattle are safe from harassment and violence.

As you know, the state passed panic button requirements for all hotels across Washington, and it's great to see that this issue has already been addressed.

As we take a closer look, We see it's not just focused on safety, but it extends job retention and health care expenditure requirements to non-hotel employees and small businesses with no relationship to the hotel's core operation.

What impacts one restaurant in Seattle impacts us all.

We're a community.

We're heroes.

We're job creators.

I know directly that running a small business, especially a restaurant in Seattle, is not easy.

I also know many of you say you care about small businesses, and I thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

So we have Sonia Guevara, Rosemary Alegria.

I'm going to try this.

I'm really apologizing if folks know anybody from Lulee Hotel, Verity Rosendale.

Okay, thank you for reading my mind.

And then Michael Clark, appreciate your understanding.

Hi, welcome.

Hi, my name's Sonia, and I'm a housekeeper.

Hotel workers need this protection because, and we have fought for a long time to get them.

Housekeeping is a very difficult job.

Housekeepers have pain and injuries because we have required to do too many rooms in a short amount of time.

My mom and I, both are workers.

I work as a housekeeper, and I did the job even while I was pregnant with my daughter Zoe, because I need to work and support my family.

We have limits of the number of rooms.

We are required to clean because we have a union, but all hotel workers need the same protections.

Housekeeping is also a dangerous job.

We have never known if a guest will come back to the room or what they might do.

Without this law in place, we also don't know what our boss might do if we report sexual harassment.

The hotel companies are taking credit for panic buttons and for taking sexual harassment seriously.

But they are only doing it because workers are pushing it in.

We need to keep pushing them to take action and keep their employees safe.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Rosemary Alegría, Bienvenidos, followed by our friend, and then Michael Clark, followed by Steve Veskosky.

Yes, and we will give the full time for translation as well, because it's in simultaneous.

So we'll do three minutes, recognizing a minute and 30 is the amount that you're actually speaking for.

So vamos a traducir en el mismo tiempo.

Si tienes espacio, está bien por él.

Gracias.

Gracias.

Buenas tardes a cada uno de ustedes.

Good evening to everyone of you.

Me llamo Rosemary Alegría.

My name is Rosemary Alegría.

Trabajo en Westin Hotel.

I work at Westin Hotel.

Soy una housekeeper.

I'm a housekeeper.

Tengo trabajando aquí en Seattle 10 años.

I've been working here in Seattle for 10 years.

Y 15 años en Perú.

And 15 years in Peru.

Housekeeper es uno de los trabajos más fuertes que trabaja la mujer.

Housekeeping is one of the hardest jobs that any woman can do.

Specifically women.

Because if you go to different hotels, we find women doing housework.

In December 2016, we had legislation E154 approved.

Esta ley nos trajo muchos beneficios a nosotros como trabajadoras, housekeeper.

That law brought us a lot of benefit to us as housekeeper workers.

Una de las preguntas que me he estado haciendo es por qué, la razón por la cual quieren quitarnos estos beneficios a través de esta ley.

So I've been wondering, why is it that through this law they want to take away all these benefits?

Me siento un poco desamparada e insegura.

I feel powerless and unsecure as a woman, as a mother.

And precisely because of the place where I work, there are many risks.

And through this law, I was feeling very secure and protected.

Quisiera entender muchas veces cosas que no comprendo.

Una de ellas, el que hayan personas que quieran quitar beneficios a una mujer trabajadora de housekeeper.

And there are several things that I would like to understand.

One of those is why there are people who would like to take away the benefits of a woman worker.

That brings us security to women who work day-to-day in a place and such a hard job that we do.

I'm coming here representing all of these women who work in hotels doing this hard work.

to ask you to please understand us how we feel as women.

If you're planning to remove or take away this law,

This law that brings us benefits and safety and that allows us to achieve everything that we need as women.

We have a program at the hotel called Green Choice.

This allows the clients to go into the room so that

They wouldn't need to have daily service.

Thank you for the time you have given to me.

This is all that I want to ask to each one of you.

We need rights that benefit women workers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Gracias, Rosemary, Alegría, and welcome.

And I'm so sorry I mispronounced your name.

If you can introduce yourself for us, followed by Michael Clark, Steve Voskoski, and then Nouris Deras.

Hello, my name is Thierry Rautureau.

Thank you.

Can you say that?

Thierry.

Yes.

There we go.

People sometimes call me Thierry on accident.

People also call me the chef in a hat.

OK, that I can remember, too.

It's easier to remember.

I'm the owner of Lulay Kitchen and Bar.

I've owned and operated my business downtown for about five and a half years.

I employ about 59 people, and I currently lease the space in the Sheraton Grand, which is the extent of my business relation with the hotel.

I have nothing to do with hotel housekeeping, and I'm definitely backing up the need of protecting anyone who's working at any place.

So I'm on the board with that one.

I'm just trying to understand, and I read through the health care requirement, and I can't understand why you would force my small business to pay up all the way to $1,680 for part-time employee per month.

I thought this legislation was about panic button and I'm completely confused about why I'm here tonight in terms of trying to understand what you guys are trying to accomplish here.

So it would be very helpful if it could be concisely said that what you're trying to accomplish and how.

Because I don't know that I should be involved with this.

And I certainly don't like it whatsoever.

So thank you very much.

Let's get back to work.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening.

My name is Michael Clark.

I'm the general manager of the Renaissance Seattle Hotel.

I also serve on the board of the Seattle Hotel Association.

I've worked in the hospitality industry for 31 years.

I started my career as a dishwasher.

busboy, a bus person, a server, worked up all through the ranks up until the time I became a general manager.

I work very hard every day to foster a culture of fairness, communication, and respect within the hotel.

I'm proud to support the 250 hotel employees that we have at Renaissance Seattle.

I think of them as family.

I'm interested in them both personally, professionally.

Their well-being means more to me than anything that they do in their workday.

This legislation is about far more than panic buttons, as we all know.

The law requires an arbitrary cash expenditure to provide access to medical care.

And how much you spend does not determine the quality of your coverage.

I think that's something very important for the council to consider.

We should be talking about the type of coverage and not the cost.

It's time to pause and get this right.

We're happy to pay overtime for hours worked, but there's no other industry that pays overtime for the entire day because somebody goes over by 1%.

We've been talking about hotel employees, and that's not what this legislation is now about.

It's time to pause and get this right.

It's far more sweeping than just hotels.

You need to understand the small businesses that work within the hotels, and this was just introduced last Monday.

I know you're going on vacation, but we don't want a repeat of what's happening in our court system now.

It's time to pause and get this right.

Thank you very much, Michael.

we have should be Steve.

Oh, great.

Hi, Steve from Hyatt.

Nouris Deras, and then Lula Hale, followed by Jessica Holton.

Hi.

Hello.

How are you?

My name is Steve Visotsky, and I'm the general manager of the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt All of Eight.

I have been a part of the industry for 40 years, all of it with Hyatt.

Today is my 40th anniversary.

I'm proud to be with the company.

And, you know, I take offense of small business at large.

We're all very important to the vital economy of Seattle.

And I also take offense to how it has been at least portrayed that we don't care about our employees.

Everything I stand for, everything our company stands for surrounds our employees.

voted on the Business Journal as the fourth best place to work in Seattle.

That didn't come by itself.

That was not an in-house.

That was an outside service that provided that.

Everything we do is about the employees.

And when this whole initiative started and the vote came through, it was about the panic buttons.

And from that standpoint, you will find a unanimous approval from the Hotel Association that the safety and security of our employees is of the paramount.

We support the panic buttons, and that has been echoed with the voices you've heard.

Not only that, but it goes beyond that, and we're talking about the adjunct businesses.

Those are a part of our network of family.

We support local endeavors to make sure that they can give a flavor of Seattle.

Please, please take a look at this because we're making way too rushed decision.

We have to sit down, understand what it is.

It's affecting small and large businesses.

It's about the economy.

Thank you, Steve.

Next we have Noris Deras followed by Lula Hale followed by Jessica Holton and Jeremy Auden.

Do we have folks that have come from downstairs that we're waiting for potentially?

Noris Deras, Lula Hale, welcome.

Go ahead and take any microphone you prefer.

Go ahead.

OK.

Hi, my name is Lula Haile.

I am from East Africa.

I am employee of Edgewater Hotel.

I work in housekeeping department.

Yeah, I talk, I asking for this panic button about whatever all housekeeping we need, but I know you guys, all of them, they talking about the money, about what, how they will afford us more business, something.

What about us?

We need safety too.

We doing good job.

We need safety.

We don't do something to make them suffer or something to make them pay money, whatever, but everybody is the thing.

If we are safety, we're doing good job more and more guests coming, more money, they make it.

But the thing, this is thinking about us too, not only about yourself.

I understand your business, maybe the money cost a lot of thing, I understand that.

What about us?

You be human being, we are human too.

We are woman, we need protection.

This I-24, we need it.

216 is there, said okay, but still you guys fighting for us, not to give us some of you, some of you give us bad machine.

We don't even hear us nobody, until I get accident over there.

So I need this one hotel member, or not hotel member, or union member, not union member, we need it.

So please, you listen to us, and don't fight us, you guys, please.

We still human being, even we are immigrants here.

We deserve this I-24.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vera.

Next, we have Jessica Houghton, followed by Jeremy Auden, followed by Ricardo Ortega.

And then Mack McGrath.

Did I mispronounce that?

Sorry, folks.

Let me start this again.

Do we have Jessica here?

Okay.

I'm going to go past Jessica.

Jeremy Auden.

No Jeremy.

Oh, Jeremy.

Great.

Thank you.

Didn't see you back there.

Welcome.

I'd like to thank the council for their hard work on this issue.

My name is Jeremy Oden.

I'm speaking on behalf of IATSE Local 15. Local 15 stands with our brothers and sisters in the hospitality industry in their fight for basic protections such as anti-harassment measures, safe workloads, and healthcare.

We believe that it's reprehensible that these multi-billion dollar hotel chains believe that their workers, the people who make it possible for their hotels to even exist, aren't worth healthcare and humane working conditions.

These employers can easily afford to give these protections to their workers.

They're pinching pennies at the expense of the hardworking people that make the magic happen.

IATSE knows a lot about making the magic happen, so we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, represented and unrepresented, and thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

Really appreciate you being here, Jeremy.

Ricardo?

Hi.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Ricardo Ortega, and I am a member of a community organization called the Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organization, or LILO.

We are an organization of people of color and women who are fighting to improve the working and living conditions in our community.

I am here to support the workers from the hotel industry.

The immigrant women who work in the hotels are facing violence, harassment, conduct, and more than half will not report because they are afraid of retaliation.

Not being believed, and also these workers need our support.

of the city, our community.

Also, we have the power, and you have the power and the political and moral responsibility to stop the whole hotel industry to continue to accommodate sexual harassment and violence from the guest hotel at the expenses of the hotel workers.

This legislation has proposed to send the strong measures to the hotel to shoot through the workers.

And when the hotel guest has a perpetrate violence take an action ban, against to the person who cannot return to the hotel for a period of five years.

The cost of healthcare is one of the main reasons of the bankruptcy in this country.

This legislation is important because it's providing a healthcare access for hotel workers and their families.

Also, it simplifies the administration for hotel employers and solidify the law against legal challenges from the hotel industry.

while upholding intent of the original initiative.

Also, I would like to thank you, everybody who is here, because this is an issue important for our community that we have to resolve.

The hotel workers deserve not just respect, but also our solidarity in their fight for better working and living conditions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ricardo, and we're happy to take your written testimony, too.

Mack McGrath, followed by Hong Zing, followed by Brianna Fox and Yoshi Takaba.

Honourable Council Members, my name is Mack McGrath.

I work at the Embassy Suites in Pioneer Square.

I'm a Local 8 member and I wish to speak in favour of the Hotel Worker Safety Ordinances.

Regulations that side with the worker in cases of sexual harassment and assault from guests are especially important for members of the marginalized communities, such as immigrants or LGBT workers, because we face additional barriers to reporting such incidents, such as fear of retaliation or not being believed.

These were the fears of my coworker, Luis, when he was harassed by a guest in the breakfast restaurant where we work.

The guests' crude comments and gestures were witnessed by a second co-worker and were distressing to all three of us.

We went with him to HR to report the incident.

But when the offender reappeared a month later, we realized the management could not be trusted to do the right thing on their own volition.

Luis considered calling out sick or leaving work early to avoid seeing the guest, despite needing money for his upcoming wedding.

He was incredibly distressed, and as his friend, I was angry that the Hotels in Action had put him in this position.

Instead, we persisted, demonstrating that we knew our rights under the law, and we demanded that the guest be banned.

In the process, we learned that the offender's husband was a highly valued Diamond member, and it was clear why management were dragging their feet.

They will always side with high-ranking guests over us.

But because of I-124, we asserted our rights and we got the guests removed and banned from the hotel.

Having him removed and knowing he couldn't come back made us all feel empowered and safer, Luis most of all.

Since we work in a public area, we can't simply be reassigned to another floor to avoid specific guests.

The only way for us to feel safe was to have him banned from returning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mac, and we're happy to take your written testimonies as well.

Welcome.

Hongxing, welcome.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Hong Zhang.

I'm a housekeeper in the WG Hotel by Sintag Airport.

I have been working there as a housekeeper for five years already.

And in my hotel, it's a union hotel, and we have the union health plan.

My three kids and my husband and I, five of us are covered under my union plan.

It's very important and very helpful for my family.

So my family, my husband can do flexible work.

and both of us can look after our two little kids so we don't give burden to this community and we are more independent.

So it is for all of our workers are independent so we can earn our respect from this country.

We don't want to rely on it.

And I just hear about the owners worry about the quality of their health insurance, the money they compensate to their workers.

So the best thing is our United Health Plan is very important.

The quality is very important.

Our workers only pay $40 a month, and the employer pays the rest of the premium.

And the physical is free for all of the family members.

And there is only $20 for co-pay.

There's no deductible.

And then the insurance pays 90%.

And it covers the vision and the dental.

This is a perfect health plan.

So if they worry about the quality of the health insurance, they would like your health plan.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

My name is Brianna Fox.

I'm the HR director for BMI Hospitality Management.

We work with three Seattle hotels and one restaurant.

Collectively, we employ over 200 people in the city of Seattle.

One of the items that I'm most concerned by these proposed bills is the minimum required expenditure for medical care that employers would be required to pay.

I do not believe that the numbers outlined in this bill accurately represent actual cost for an employer to provide affordable, high-quality coverage to their employees.

We absolutely want to create a safe working environment for our employees.

We absolutely want to provide affordable, high-quality health care for our employees.

I don't believe that the cost outlined in this bill would achieve that.

I think it would put undue hardship on the employer to provide cost at this coverage.

We currently provide 100% employer-paid, gold-level coverage to all of our employees here in Seattle.

The employee pays nothing out of pocket for the monthly premium cost and we're able to do that at a cost of $427 per month per employee.

It's clear that the amounts listed in this bill do not accurately represent what it costs for an employer to provide high quality health care coverage to their employees.

This council is claiming that the proposed legislation is to provide affordable medical coverage for Seattle employees and their families and to create a safer working environment.

I think if that were true, the union would not be exempt from these bills.

Yoshi, you will be followed by a Jeremiah Followed and Lisa Cruz and then Seattle raging grannies who I think just left if they can't hear me they are up next if anybody wants to grab them Thank You councilmember Bagshaw for being here, and thank you for being here Yoshi My name is Yoshi Takaba.

I'm an area manager for the three IHG properties in Seattle I've been in the industry for 21 years now Of that, out of that, 10 years I've been in housekeeping.

I love housekeeping job.

It's passionate, passion for me.

I want to make my employees happy.

And I take pride in being fair to my employees.

It's, I'm sure everyone agrees, we provide a number of checkouts, number of double beds, small details, but we want to be fair to everyone.

And this initiative right now is proposing that what room, It hasn't been cleaned for 24 hours, counted the strenuous room, because the previous guest put a do not disturb sign.

Or the housekeeper, Susie, didn't want to go clean five minutes later.

Then we get penalized by that.

And that's just not fair.

Because do you guys tell McDonald's how to make Big Macs?

There's no rule on that one, right?

So why does the hotel industry have to get penalized by that?

I just want you to think hard on that and be patient, think through, and just let us know how we can help you guys.

We are here.

Just make sure employees are safe and happy at work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Yoshi.

Next we have Jeremiah, followed by Lisa Cruz, and then Seattle Raging Grannies.

And following that, Kimberly Spice.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Jeremiah.

I've worked in the restaurant, banquets, and hotel industry for 15 years now.

And I'll tell you, it's hard to find a full-time, good-paying job that offers benefits.

At times, I've had four part-time jobs to support my family.

I've been a restaurant server, banquet server, bartender, banquet bartender, room service worker, banquet captain and supervisor.

And presently I work at the Edgewater Hotel.

I've been there 13 years.

It's been about three years that I am able to get enough hours for it to be my only job.

The Edgewater offers medical benefits if its employees work 80 hours in a month.

In good years, I've been able to maintain my insurance all year at this threshold.

But this past year, even maintaining 80 hours average has been impossible.

There were two, three months this year where I lost my insurance.

This is my story as an employee with 13 years seniority at a union hotel.

Where are banquet and restaurant servers in Seattle's predominantly non-union hotel market supposed to get health insurance?

We can work 60 hours all across town in a week and still not have any access to healthcare benefits.

That is why it is so important that healthcare access be made available to employees who work 80 hours or more per month and that workers at ancillary hotel businesses are covered as well.

If the council were to make the threshold of 32 hours a week to qualify for health insurance, that would disqualify a vast majority of workers who work the same number of hours that I do.

We cannot forget that hotels can and do distribute shifts strategically to keep people from meeting the threshold of healthcare.

In addition, excluding ancillary hotel businesses from the healthcare requirement would provide another incentive for hotels to outsource their banquets and restaurant operations.

This will only hurt workers and deny even more of us access to affordable health insurance.

When drafting the final version of these laws, do not forget about us.

Banquets and restaurant workers deserve dignity and respect for the profits we deliver hotel owners.

Thank you, Jeremiah.

Lisa Cruz.

Hi, Lisa.

Hi, good evening, everyone.

I'm Lisa Cruz.

I'm working to the embassy suite housekeeping.

Yeah, I really support this law because I'm the single mom and I get a pain for my workers, so we all know the hotel is a housekeeping heart of the hotel.

So if you cared for the guests in the hotel, we really care too.

That's why we work harder even we get that really pain because this job is not easy.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Lisa.

Do we have Seattle Raging Grannies?

I think we would see them if they were in the audience.

They may have left.

While we take a quick pause to see if they're here or coming up, I want to let folks downstairs know we maybe have eight seats up here.

If you do want to come on up, we have some spots.

So following that, Kimberly, is that you?

Thanks for being here, Kimberly.

Thank you.

I'm Kimberly Spice, and I am the owner of Biscuit Bitch.

I have owned and operated.

Have you testified here before?

This might be a first for Seattle Channel to hear this language.

We can start your time over, Kimberly.

Thank you.

I've owned and operated my business in Seattle for nine years now.

And I have three locations downtown and 52 employees now.

And I lease a space in the Belltown Inn.

And that is the extent of my business relationship with the hotel.

I have nothing to do with hotel housekeeping and I don't understand the reason ancillary businesses are included in this legislation.

Now I do believe in taking care of my employees and I believe in protections for the housekeepers.

I fully supported the minimum wage law.

I believe everyone has a right to health insurance.

I stand for the housekeepers and the hotel workers.

And I want them to have their protections and their healthcare.

But I can't understand why my small business is being brought into this.

I currently pay 75% of the cost of healthcare for my staff.

And that is only $470 a month for an excellent Kaiser Gold plan with dental and vision to all employees working 20 or more hours per week.

I have a 3% retirement plan match.

I do profit sharing bonuses.

I share all the profit over the summer.

We're closed between Christmas and New Year's and everybody gets a paid vacation.

In order to be fair to all 52 of my employees, I would have to pay that higher cost for everyone, which would force me to take away some of the other benefits that I offer.

That, I mean, we have a two and a half year retention rate right now.

I have very happy employees.

And I really don't wanna do that, so that would force me to have to vacate my lease at Belltown Inn.

So what I'm here today to ask you is to please rewrite this legislation to take the non-hotel employees and small businesses like mine out of it.

Thank you very much Kimberly.

Next we have Brandy Mitchell followed by Celano Hebrillo followed by Ernie Burton I'm sorry again about the pronunciation.

I feel like George W. Bush a little bit up here when I keep doing this.

So feel free to correct me.

Brandy Mitchell followed by Stellano.

Brandy, thank you for, did I get your name right?

You did.

All right.

My name is Brandy Mitchell.

I'm an area manager of IHG Properties in Seattle.

We agree with hotel employees need to be safe.

They need to be protected.

So we don't disagree with that at all.

We have processes and procedures and trainings to help our staff avoid injuries.

That was part in the illustration.

If injury does occur to a team member, we take that very seriously.

We want them to report it.

We want them to go to the hospital and be looked at.

And there's an existing system to cover those situations.

They're covered by our workman compensation claims.

That's in addition to the healthcare we already provide to our staff.

The legislation requires overtime for all hours worked, even if the employee exceeds the mandatory minimum workload by one square foot.

We are happy to pay overtime, but this is extreme for our businesses and causes a lot of unnecessary track record keeping for the staff and whatnot.

And we just want you just to be thoughtful in this process for everyone, the employees, the businesses, the small businesses.

Thank you.

Stiliano, followed by Ernie, followed by Brian.

It looks like maybe a group.

Brian, Sheila, and a team from Mediterranean Inn.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi again.

My name is Stigliano.

I work at Embassy Suites Hotel downtown.

I came in America two years ago, and I have realized that Seattle needs control on jobs and rent.

Time is not enough to mention everything that's happening on the hotel businesses.

As we're talking, I'm having five days off this week and four of them last week.

I pay crazy expensive medical plans, such as for last year, $156 per paycheck, $312 per month, which means $3,754 per year.

This year, I changed to a cheaper one.

111 per paycheck, 222 per month, 2,664 per year.

So I can save like $1,000 this year, which I will probably use for my rent, which has increased twice so far, and now it's going to be $1,200 per month.

My total medical expenses last year, without including the medicines or drugs, were like $5,300.

I even have a paycheck with me. from last year, which is $73.

$73 from my full-time job.

I am one of the full-timers there at Embassy Suites who needs to work on other departments, server, breakfast attendant, evening reception, dishwasher, mop, sweep, and deep clean, just to get some hours whenever it's slow, or have a second job, which I do.

And these are informations I have with me, including the bills.

can be verified, and they really need to change.

I don't have any wife and kids, so I can get benefits from them, but that doesn't mean I don't have a family back home.

So as I said before, Seattle needs control on jobs and rent, especially in the hotels.

Thank you.

Thank you, Silviano.

Thank you.

Ernie Burton, followed by the group from Mediterranean Inn, and then George Krohn.

My name is Ernie Burton, and I work at the Edgewater Hotel part-time, and I help support all the union members around town for all what they do and what they're doing in the hotel industry.

And I'm turning it over to Jose.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Ernie, and I'm here standing Jorge Baron with Northwest American Rights Project, and we just wanted to express our support for the legislation and here in solidarity with Ernie.

Many of our clients are people who survived domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes, and we've had a number of clients who have experienced sexual harassment and sexual assault in their workplace.

So we want to appreciate the work that Council has done in this issue and support the legislation along with Ernie here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

If the group from Mediterranean Inn is here.

You need a minute?

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

Can we go with George Crone?

Hi, George.

Thanks for being here.

Absolutely.

Good evening.

Thank you for hearing me.

It has been the theme here.

My name, I'm sorry, George Cronk, I'm the general manager at the Hotel 1000. A lot of us have come up through the business, obviously, and we continue to talk about employee safety, which obviously is crucially important to every one of us.

I stand in front of my group of employees on a daily basis.

talk through making sure that they're closing doors behind them, making sure they have everything they need to be successful in their daily job.

And obviously, we want to provide health care.

The health care that's being proposed, a dollar amount exceeds what is necessary get qualified health insurance.

Of course we want to make sure they have qualified health insurance, something they can all afford.

We continue to talk about the overtime.

The overtime for one portion over that square footage is just, it's.

to pay a full day's overtime is something that we just, it's just too much.

We really need to look at how we're impacting, we talk about small business, we talk about hotels.

We really need to look and make sure that we're doing the right thing for all parties.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

After the Mediterranean Inn, we will be hearing from Nicole Keenan and Tobias Groll, and then Jim Gregerson.

Hi.

So we're the Mediterranean Inn and the Belltown Inn.

I thought if we were grouped, we might have just a little longer.

Yeah.

Why don't we go ahead and we will give you, since we took 30 seconds off the original time, we'll take a full minute off the group time, so you'll have four minutes total.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

And we're not just representing the Belltown Inn.

We're also the Mediterranean Inn, but also the Belltown Inn.

which Kim is our tenant at and will not be if this legislation passes as is.

I started this industry in the 90s.

I started as a night clerk, 24-hour, you know, overnight graveyard.

I worked day shift.

I worked evening shift.

I cleaned hundreds of rooms.

I've done hundreds of hours of maintenance.

Every single member on my team started as an entry-level employee.

It's one of the few meritocracies left, and you guys have it on a bullseye for some reason that's inexplicable to me.

I'm deeply personally offended at the attitude you think we have towards our team, and I've invited each of you individually, except for Ms. Swant, to come by the property, either property, anytime they want, get a full tour, see how business works, talk to employees, and educate yourselves.

We have never been invited to meaningfully participate in this legislation and you're on an express train run with it.

Both hotels are small family owned hotels that have already taken.

$200,000, $300,000 a year additional expenses with some of the legislation you guys have passed without consulting us in any meaningful way.

What you're talking about now is another $500,000, $600,000 a year.

$1,600,000 and change is not even remotely realistic what it costs to provide decent quality insurance, but you don't seem interested in that at any rate.

The small family-owned businesses like ours, and by the way, these families have owned these since they built them from the ground up.

They don't sell them to REITs.

Family-owned businesses like ours will disappear and you'll be left with what you want.

No small businesses, no family-owned businesses in the city limits.

We certainly won't have coffee shops and restaurants and things like that in any hotel if these pass.

And those who pay their rent and their mortgage and take care of their families on these jobs won't have them.

Every person in our team has an opportunity.

in our businesses.

It's grossly unfair, happening much too quick, and happening without any meaningful input from the real stakeholders.

And I still extend that invitation if any of you want to educate yourselves on what goes on in real life at these properties.

We had panic buttons, by the way.

I put them in in 99 or 2000. And we get a great L&I rate because we're so accident-free.

We take care of our people.

We don't have the contempt form that you guys seem to think we have, and it's really sad.

Nicole Keenan, followed by Tobias Girl, followed by Jim Grayerson, and then Amanda Parsons.

And I'm going to remind folks, we do want to accommodate groups when you do have them.

We do ask for folks to have more than one person speak if you're coming up as a group.

Nicole, and then we'll go through.

Hi, my name's Nicole Ballesterra, I'm the Executive Director of Puget Sound SAGE.

One of the things I want to name is I come from four generations of women of color small business owners.

And on top of that, I've spent the better part of the last 10 years either passing labor standards or supporting enforcing them.

One of the things that I noticed when I was doing a lot of labor standards enforcement was that one of the common traits and dissonances between employees and the people who pay their paychecks at times are an assumption about the relationship.

A lot of times I hear a lot of bosses say, we're like family, we're family.

And I hear workers say, I'm so afraid of them that I don't know how to approach this because they think we're like family.

And if you come from any kind of family, you know that families often have boundaries that are unclear.

There's a lot of times when maybe families are abusive.

So I just don't think that that's a really great metaphor to talk about what it means to have an employer-employee relationship.

I am the boss of 15 people.

I would never call them family, but I respect their rights deeply.

And when I do that by following labor law, by encouraging the passage of labor law and supporting workers in every way that I can.

This law is vital for the protection of, in particular, workers who are subject to sexual harassment and sexual assault.

It is so very rare there's a false accusation, so statistically rare that there is a false accusation.

So anytime a woman comes forward, we have to believe them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nicole.

Thank you for waiting.

And then Jim Gregerson, Amanda Parsons, followed by Dustin Lambrow and Nathan Rottle.

My pleasure, thank you for having me here today.

I'm Tobias Girl, I'm the Economic Program Coordinator for LGBTQ Allyship, an LGBTQ plus economic justice organization representing over 3,700 community members here in the Puget Sound area.

In 2016, we worked hard to pass Initiative 124 because hotel workers' rights are LGBTQ people's rights.

we're more likely to work in the service industry, and we're more likely to experience the kind of harassment and discrimination that this law is intending to combat.

Additionally, we work closely with the workers.

We hear their complaints and we hear their lack of education around their rights.

These very same managers who are talking about their workers as their family often neglect to inform them that nice things like panic buttons only appear when laws are passed.

They do not inform them that they are legally mandated.

So we cannot urge strongly enough that OLS enforcement be a part of this law.

It has been more than proven necessary.

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 Chair Mosqueda.

We thank you all for your time.

And that concludes my speech on behalf of the real stakeholders.

Thank you very much.

Welcome, Jim.

Followed by Jim is going to be Amanda, Dustin, and then Nathan.

My name is Jim Gregson.

I'm an insurance broker for Parker, Smith & Feek.

We work closely with our clients, hotel clients.

We sit down behind the closed doors and we have the conversations about what we feel and what they feel is best for their employees.

They're in a very competitive business.

Finding talent, particularly in this market, is very difficult.

and they spend a lot of time and energy trying to do what's best for their employees.

I can say that from personal experience.

I know exactly how they think because I've sat down again behind the closed doors that I think there's a lot of concern about the focus of the employers.

I'd also say that the way the pricing is structured is not reflective of how insurance pricing really works.

Having a flat dollar amount is in fact probably the worst way to buy insurance.

the appropriate way is to find the right level of coverage.

Affordable, you know, looking for affordability, looking for quality of coverage, and matching that with what employees needs.

So I would very much encourage you to sit down with some folks in the insurance business, figure out how insurance prices are created, and then of course determine if there's fairness in all this.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Hi, Amanda.

Good evening.

My name is Amanda Parsons.

I'm the general manager of the Thompson Seattle I've worked in the hospitality industry for over 20 years and I started my career as many people have today As a server and a family-owned restaurant and I've committed my career to this industry in a variety of roles in my experience this legislation will bring additional unintended consequences This is being rushed This industry is unique because of its interdependence.

There is no one department or discipline that can survive without the others.

Everything we do, day in, day out, is as a team.

There is no doubt that we care about our employees.

We work together every single day.

We have relationships with each other.

We celebrate our successes and life's milestones.

I sleep with my phone next to the bed and answer it at all hours.

I'm available to my team for any reason.

Our focus on safety to all team members is because we care, not because we have to.

This is why we've already established anti-harassment policies in our hotels, support safety committee meetings and training, and conduct annual hotel-wide safety training regularly.

We also supported the passage of statewide panic button requirements and are proud to provide them to each of our team members.

How much you spend on insurance does not determine the quality of the coverage.

We should be talking about the type of coverage, not the cost.

There are long-term impacts to this legislation that impact all industries.

And this has not been explored enough.

This is rushed.

This is essentially like telling the used car salesman how much you have to spend before they show you their cars.

Please take the time to learn more and understand the impacts.

We need that.

Thank you, Amanda.

Justin, following you will be Nathan Rottle, followed by Jeremiah Salduate and Mac McArthur.

Okay, well thank you Chair Terry and members of the committee.

I'm here on behalf of Teamsters Local 117, and I was also just elected president of the Martin Luther King County Labor Council.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

This legislation is not rushed.

We've had three years, over three years to think about this legislation.

I was a voter in 2016. I got my voter's pamphlet statement and the legislation initiative 124 said more than just panic buttons.

This has not rushed, this has been thoughtful.

I know the hotel industry chose not to fight this three years ago because they knew the polling was really bad.

And so now you're trying to, and then you sued for three years, and now you're trying to, encourage Council not to pass this legislation.

This is important.

That room downstairs is full of women and people of color who work in your hotels, and I just strongly encourage you all, managers from the hotels, to think about optics, and I understand it's the last meritocracy, but maybe have some women and people of color promoted to management.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dustin.

Nathan.

Folks.

All right.

I'm going to say this, and I was going to save it for the end, but I appreciate how folks have been respectful to let people have their minute and a half.

We're going to continue to go through.

I am fine with applauses, but we're going to keep this in a respectful manner.

I know there's stuff that has been said that other people don't agree with.

I appreciate the applause, but we're not going to engage in boos, okay?

So, we are going to continue and that is Nathan Roddle followed by Jeremiah and then Mac.

Okay, my name is Nathan Rodkey from Washington, Kan.

I want to thank you guys for having me here today.

This country is way behind on healthcare.

I'm here to talk about healthcare.

We're way behind as a country.

It's really unconscionable.

My organization stands on the belief that healthcare is a human right.

And I actually want to thank those of you who showed up that are leading on that, that are providing like gold level insurance for your employees.

Like, that's really cool.

That's a good thing.

You guys should feel really good about that, and I appreciate that you guys have done that.

However, we wouldn't be here today if restaurant employees and hotel employees all had great health insurance.

They clearly don't.

That's one of the reasons that piece is in that legislation.

So I really want people to examine that as you engage with one another to make sure that we are all collectively leading on this.

And I want to applaud folks in city council and the workers and the employees.

And I stand in solidarity with them because I hear the word dignity being thrown around here.

And I appreciate everybody who's saying that in earnest to respect the dignity of workers, especially when it comes to health.

Nobody should be making any sorts of decisions.

medical care with the fear of the bill in mind.

So again, if you guys are serious about leading on health care, make sure that you present something where all of you are able to provide goal level coverage for your employees.

Thanks everybody.

All right, thank you.

One more reminder, we have Jeremiah, followed by Mac McGrath, followed by Katie Garrow.

And as folks are potentially making their way up from downstairs, I wanna encourage everybody to direct your comments to us as city council members.

That's something we've done in the past, and I just wanna make sure everybody knows we're here to receive those comments.

Council members want, and just let me do one more reminder to folks who are coming up.

We're looking for Jeremiah Saldate, Mac McGrath, Katie Garrow, followed by Christy Smith.

I believe Jeremiah and Mac have already spoken.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you for telling me if that's the case.

We will move on to Katie Garrow, followed by Christy Smith, Leah Larver, and Michael Buhn.

I'm going to say those again.

If Jeremiah and Mac are here, you're up.

Katie Garrow, Christy Smith, Leah Larver, and Michael Buhn.

Hi, Michael, I recognize you.

Why don't you come on up, and then as folks make their way in, we'll get them to the microphone.

Thank you so much.

I'm Michael Byun.

I'm the executive director of an organization called Asian Counseling and Referral Service.

We're a civil rights and social justice organization that reaches over 35,000 folks each year.

I'm here tonight to ask council to provide safety from harassment and harm for our hotel workers and to ensure that they have access to medical care that you and I enjoy.

A majority of non-management hotel workers, like housekeepers, are immigrants, about 56%.

They have an average age of 40 and are the main support to their family.

80% are women.

The 2012 IMF Chief Dominic Strauss-Kahn's case of alleged attack on an immigrant housekeeper is one clear example and a reminder of why the legislation as it currently proposed sends a strong message to hotels, should trust workers, and when a hotel guest has perpetrated violence, take action to ban that person.

In the area of health care access, hotel workers face a daunting choice of paying the exorbitant premium for employee-based plans and out-of-reach deductibles versus food for their family and housing.

In many instances, hotel workers are needing to cover 40% of their medical costs they can't afford.

So they opt not to enroll, or they make a difficult choice of who in their family should go with or without coverage.

These aren't the decisions that we want hardworking people to make.

We urge this member of committee here to vote in support of this and in this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Michael.

Hi, good evening, Councilmembers.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you.

My name is Katie Garrow.

I'm the Deputy Executive Director of MLK Labor.

This weekend, while talking to my mom about her general hopelessness under President Trump, she asked me what kept me from feeling totally defeated.

I told her that I focused my intentions and efforts wholly on local efforts.

On the same night that the United States of America elected a rapist hotel mogul, Seattle voters passed Initiative 124, a policy that protects mostly immigrant women of color from sexual harassment on the job.

These efforts locally tell the story of the best of who we are.

Due to the Hotel Association's deep pockets, they have successfully blocked the will of the voters using the court system.

But workers have never depended on any court to decide our fate, and we aren't about to now.

I want to say thank you to the Seattle City Council.

Excuse me.

I want to say thank you.

to the Seattle City Council for finding a window when the door was closed.

I've heard a lot of concerns about the ways that this initiative believes women who report sexual harassment due process for the accused, they say.

But does a person with no shoes on get a right to due process when a restaurant removes them for being barefoot?

No.

Private establishments kick people out all the time, and this legislation gives the accused guests the right to notice an investigation and an appeal.

For white liberals, in particular, who are horrified by Donald Trump's racist behavior towards immigrants and people of color, supporting this legislation is one of the best ways that we can show allyship.

Thank you.

Hi, welcome.

And if folks do want to leave written comments, we will definitely take those.

Hi, I'm Leah LaVar.

I have been in hospitality for 23 years.

My first job was at a very small hotel where I had many jobs as a front desk agent, housekeeping when housekeeping went home, engineering when they went home.

I've also worked for several years in housekeeping and laundry and then ultimately moved into HR.

For me and the teams that I've been lucky to work with, the people that we work with and support has been what's kept me in hospitality for these 23 years.

Today and always fully supported panic buttons, never supported the harassment and mistreatment of anyone, whether that be employees, vendors, coworkers, or otherwise.

We have practices in place to deal with that.

I do think there's pieces of this legislation, this part of the legislation that we need to look at and how we implement it.

I want to talk about the medical legislation and illustrate what I foresee in my experience in HR as an unintended consequence of the law.

The intent of the law is to provide quality health coverage at an affordable price.

Putting a set dollar amount on the coverage, in my opinion, takes away our ability on the HR employer side to negotiate a plan that works for our teams.

We know our teams, we know what ails them, we know whose child has autism, we know who's fighting cancer, and we are able to work with a broker who doesn't know how much we have to spend on the plan to negotiate a plan that works for what our teams need.

Taking that away and prescribing an amount is essentially telling them what they can charge us for the bare minimum plan without being able to personalize it for our team.

Thank you.

If you had more to say and we didn't get to it, feel free to leave your written comments with us as well.

Christy Smith, I just want to make one last call to see if Christy's here from Crown Plaza.

Okay, moving on.

Lori Rossello Torres.

Hi, welcome.

Thanks for having me, council members.

My name is Lori Roselio-Torres.

I'm a member of Migrante Seattle, an organization that serves migrant Filipino workers and their families.

I'm also the language access organizer for API Chaya.

As an organization that serves survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, APHA wholeheartedly supports the reinstatement of Initiative 124. We believe this law is necessary in preventing workplace violence against workers, as well as ensuring health workers can be healthy, able to keep their jobs, and continue to be able to provide for their families.

We decried the lobbying of the American Hotel and Lodging Association to strike down this law in an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the welfare of their employees and to deprive workers of their basic rights to safety and dignity.

I'd like to remind them, and you, that without workers, some who are separated a long way from their families, tending to guests every day, day in, day out, ensuring that the establishment is clean, there would be no profits for the owners.

They are the reason that the hospitality business and all businesses in our world-class city thrives.

The impact of the physical labor they perform and the customer service emotional labor every day results in the need for health care to ensure that their bodies can continue to keep their jobs and provide for their families and, by the way, keep the hotels running.

This is about creating the conditions for workers to be able to do their jobs and keep their livelihoods.

All workers deserve health care and safety, especially migrant workers, and we hope you stand by the just decision to reinstate this policy.

Thank you.

So the next four people that we have are Victoria Brooks, Stan Shuma, Katie Henderson, and Angelita Sherburn.

If there is, I'm getting to the last list here, so if there's other folks who got inspired to testify, we're going to keep the sign-in sheet up there.

But again, Victoria Brooks, are you here?

Hey, thank you, Victoria.

Followed by Victoria is Stan.

And apologies, Stan, for your last name that I'm sure I pronounced incorrectly.

Hi, Victoria.

Thank you.

I have the good fortune to work at Lulay, which is an independent restaurant attached to the Sheraton.

I think what I'm seeing here is that there are two separate issues that are being piled together.

Hotel workers absolutely deserve to be safe.

I don't think that should be a question.

What is happening though is that a business that is merely by virtue of proximity is being in detriment, actually.

So we're having to put that kind of imposition on the business.

What will happen is that the business will fail.

And so if you have that happening, you're going to have unemployed people.

And all of these people that we're talking about are all human.

The hotel workers are human, and the independent businesses and their employees are human, too.

And we all deserve to be safe and working.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Stan, followed by Katie Henderson, followed by Angelita Shuburn, followed by Michael Hirsch.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you, City Council, for having us here.

My name is Stan Shikuma.

I am a member of the Seattle chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and also a member of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance.

I come here to support reinstatement of I-124.

I believe I grew up on a farm, and what this really brings back to me is some of the, in the 60s, my parents owned a small farm.

And the United Farm Workers were trying to organize the valley.

And the farmers, the growers, were very afraid of what was going to happen.

and fought against it quite a bit.

The farm workers union wanted higher wages, they wanted better conditions, they wanted more safety, and the growers were afraid and not ready to deal with that.

Eventually, union contracts were signed and the sky did not fall.

The farmers did not lose their businesses and the workers got better conditions.

even the ones that were non-unionized got better conditions.

I think we need to look at the people on the bottom and what they need and what they deserve, and I support our reinstatement of I-124.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Katie Henderson, and I work at MLK Labor, and I'd like to share with you my experience working as a housekeeper.

A housekeeper, a person, not a dollar sign.

The amount of effort required To barely pass muster working there was nowhere near commensurate with the pay.

Yet some other women I worked with justified the heartbreakingly low pay because they had benefits.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that the hotel slash high-end gyms locker room attendant made more than they did.

I have worked in five different warehouses.

I have operated ski lifts.

and the harshest of conditions.

Cleaning hotel rooms was the hardest job I have ever had.

I was so overworked and exhausted that my sleep schedule, my schedule was work, shower, sleep, repeat.

My feet were so swollen that it hurt to walk.

I cleaned hotel rooms in my socks and made sure my manager did not notice.

Where I worked, room assignments were by floor, we were understaffed, and the few co-workers I did have were spread out across the hotel.

When I think about it now, I ask myself, should someone have assaulted me, who would have heard me cry for help?

Many housekeeping employees are immigrants who struggle with English.

The independent nature of housekeeping helps them obtain employment.

One coworker from Hong Kong asked me, in broken English, this is hard work.

Why do you work here for such little pay?

The only reason I work here is because I can't speak English.

I lived in the US for two years before I found a job.

And one final issue that I need to address, despite my time being up, is that there's a problem with suicides, actually.

A lot of people commit suicide in hotel rooms.

And that's something that I was very grateful that I did not have to encounter, but it does happen.

And for that reason, panic buttons are very important.

Thank you.

Know you had written testimony.

We're happy to take that as well and share it with the rest of the council if you'd like to leave that Angelita Sherburn followed by Michael Hurst followed by I Will read this in a moment as we are getting the other testimony and maybe my colleagues can help me D appears to be the first initial Okay, do we have Angelita?

Hi, my name is Angelita Sherborne.

I am a union leader from SEIU 1199 Northwest and 25 years in housekeeping job.

And I'm a EBS worker at Swedish Providence Cherry Hill Campus.

I am here to stand in solidarity with the hotel workers of Seattle because I know what it is like to get injured on the job.

When you have to use your body repeatedly, leave heavily linen, pushing heavy carts, and most importantly, have too much workload, your body is always at risk of injury.

Recently, I had to clean 21 rooms, plus four discharges and 10 common areas, plus hallways to map all in eight hours.

I was really exhausted, but I really wanted to finish my job before the end of the day.

At the end of my shift, I had my last discharge to clean.

I pulled out the heavy linen from the hamper, which is a normal duty of my job.

But this time, I twisted my wrists and my ligaments swollen.

My family was worried for me because I am the breadwinner of the family.

If I cannot work, The worry is that I may not be able to support my family in the Philippines.

Angelita, could you wrap up for us just because of the time?

Oh, thank you.

Okay.

Feel free to leave your public testimony as well.

And if you have one more sentence, we're happy to tell you that you can take one sentence to wrap up.

I'm just having small words here.

I urge the member of the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee and the City Council as a whole to stand with hotel workers and support the legislation unit entirely so that no family should have to suffer uncertainly about where the next paycheck is coming when we get hurt at work.

Thank you so much.

Michael Michael Michael Hirsch And then DeResley, D. Resley, sorry.

Is there anybody else who has signed up?

I saw one more person sign up on that sheet there.

And maybe somebody's making their way to the microphone because they think I said their name.

Are there anybody who just said, anybody who has signed up?

And then we will have Sonia Guevara and Ilona Keener.

Sonia Guevara.

She already testified.

Ileana Keener.

Hi.

Thanks for waiting.

No, I just walked up to sign up anyway.

So my name is Ilona Kinnear.

While I don't have any experience in the hotel industry, I do have some experience in food.

But what I want to say is that people, there are good work, good actors in the hotel community, but that doesn't cover everyone.

It's a false equivalency to say that if I do something good, everyone's going to do something good.

The only way that we can get actual, concrete, guaranteed benefits is through laws, which is why this is important.

While there may be some things wrong with saying a set dollar amount, we should have a set coverage that employers need to give their employees.

So thank you so much for putting this on the table and for giving people the opportunity to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I apologize if I've mispronounced your name.

If you have signed up and you're waiting to testify, now's the time to line up at the microphone.

We have gotten to the end of our 10 pages of public testimony.

Hi, did you want to speak?

Yes.

Okay, wonderful.

Just introduce yourself for the record and then we'll get you all signed up.

Good evening, Abby Lawler with Unite Here Local 8. I just wanted to take a second to note it was a profound experience to be in this room tonight and to hear so many hotel workers, so many hotel managers and owners and folks from the industry declaring their unequivocal support for panic buttons.

And I just want to recognize all of the organizing work and all of the women who've spoken out about their experiences over the last three years.

have come forward and how that's pushed the industry and gotten us to where we are today.

And so really want to recognize that and recognize their bravery and what they've done over the last three years to get us to where we are today.

And also say that we can do better and we need to do better.

And I think the legislation that's before you is going to be an important pathway for us to do that and make sure that women can go to work and feel safe and be protected.

And I did want to offer just a few suggestions on the policy that's before the committee.

to ensure that the overall objectives of the policy are achieved in full.

Hotel workers must have access to low-barrier, low-fear pathways to reporting workplace violence and harassment, and worker reports must trigger a reliable and meaningful action from their employers.

We urge the committee to consider amending the language to address the confidentiality of reporting workers and witnesses, to further protect workers from retaliation, and to grant workers a mechanism to appeal the results of an employer investigation in the same way that guests are allowed to appeal under the policy.

Also, I want to note that the record keeping requirements and notice requirements in the legislation should be strengthened to make sure that workers can defend their rights.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you, Abby.

testimony for today.

There will be, as we talked about, three additional opportunities, and I'll read through those again before we conclude.

Before anybody else gets up, anybody wanting to make their way to the microphone?

Okay.

At this point, before I say some closing words, I didn't open the floor to our council colleagues.

If there's any last comments that folks would like to make, you can feel free to.

Council Member Swan.

Thank you.

I really appreciate all the workers and the members of the labor movement who testified today, especially the rank-and-file members of Unite Here Local Aid and the non-union members who testified because it is not easy It is nerve wracking to be able to speak openly and bravely about workplace conditions.

I also want to reiterate from my office the commitment that we will absolutely be fighting for the best healthcare coverage for all workers, union and non-union.

And I think there was really powerful testimony about how When union workers win something, it also positively affects non-union workers.

So we're talking about workers in the entire city that will be impacted.

The last thing I'll add is, just to echo what Abby said, it's interesting to see the hotel industry and the restaurant industry saying that they're committed to panic buttons and that they're happy to do it.

First of all, it wouldn't have happened if workers hadn't fought for it.

But also I'm hearing from a lot of workers that it is not being implemented across the board.

So if you are truly committed to it, I would urge you that it's actually implemented.

Because we are hearing from workers that panic, they don't have panic buttons.

And that they're hearing from the managerial, the bosses that it's going to cost them too much to do it.

And that's why they haven't implemented it.

They need Wi-Fi and so on and so forth.

There are studies that have been published that say that it is actually very, very reasonably priced and certainly big, big establishments like hotels can certainly do that.

So we hope, given how much commitment you have expressed for panic buttons, that you will go ahead and implement that for all workers.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I want to thank everybody for being here.

It's a full two-hour hearing, and we have gotten you out before the garage closes, so that feels good.

I just want to say I appreciate the respectful conversation that's happened today.

I know that folks have various opinions.

I want to reiterate how important it is for people to feel heard when they come to the microphone.

Especially for those who might not come here and testify on a regular basis.

We know that this is not easy to do So I want to make sure people feel like they're in a safe space when they do speak up Thank you for adhering to our rules as we talked about committing to a minute and a half.

That's just not enough time We know that so we'll keep Keep engaging with all of you who've come today.

I want to thank councilmembers Bagshaw Gonzalez Pacheco Herbold and so on Thank you all for being here tonight and for actually being at multiple of these meetings.

Council Member Gonzalez's office and I have been working on some of the details that you've seen laid out so far, and we're all committing as a council to continue working on this legislation.

With the Office of Labor Standards, with the mayor's office, with central staff, and the city's attorney's office, there have been more meetings over the last six months trying to put together some of the initial proposals that you see, and we'll continue to have those discussions.

especially based on the conversations that we've heard today, the priorities from stakeholders, ideas that we've heard from the various committee meetings, and today's robust discussion from all of you that has helped inform, again, the four pieces of legislation that we're talking about.

Harassment and safety of hotel workers, protection from injury and workload protections, healthcare, for workers and worker retention.

These are four important components that together, I think, over the next few weeks here, we will have some additional opportunities to have various discussions.

And today, again, is not the very beginning of the conversation, given the ongoing discussion around Initiative 124, the last few months of engagement that we've had with both industry and workers.

But this is also a good place for us to reiterate that going forward there's ample opportunities for us to continue to engage.

I want to reiterate the dates that we talked about at the very beginning of the meeting on July 11th.

We will have conversation around possible changes as we call issue identification so we can bring forward some of the themes that we heard, just summarizing, overtime calculation, healthcare calculation, small business slash ancillary business definition, issues around making sure that there's enforcement and low barrier reporting for workers are just some of the themes that we heard about today.

On July 18th we'll be seeing some possible amendments and considering possible amendments for the council's consideration.

We are planning to add an August first committee meeting that's a Thursday, August 1st at 9.30 to talk more about those amendments and possible vote.

And then the second Monday of August is the date that we would like to bring this forward to full council.

So I want folks to know what the timeline is.

You all have that in your binders as well.

And that has been made available.

And we will include the written testimony that folks have given us.

And if you want to send it, I think you know how to reach all of us.

Lastly, I want to say thank you to the incredible staff that have made tonight possible.

Thank you so much to our team, Aaron House, who's up here, Sejal Parikh, Chief of Staff, Aretha Basu, who's been running around.

I know Councilmember Gonzalez, I saw your staff, Brianna Thomas, and others.

If I've missed anybody else, Roxana, thank you to Roxana for being here as well.

To our child care providers who were on site and providing child care, we really appreciate you being here.

And to our interpreters for making sure that everybody could understand what was being discussed in real time.

Gracias a lo que estan interpretiendo.

Thank you for the translation for this evening.

Thank you for your work.

Their work makes it possible for us to do our work.

So thank you to those interpreters.

And again, thank you all for engaging with us.

We look forward to continuing to have that dialogue.

And one last thank you to our security.

You guys, thank you for staying extra and helping folks come up in the evening and get up those stairs with the overflow room.

We've really appreciated it.

Just for the good of order, the next Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will be on Thursday, July 11th at 930 in these council chambers.

Is there anything else?

Okay, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all very much.