BizFed Opposes 3 Ballot Measures

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The Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed) board voted recently to oppose a trio of local measures on the November ballot, including a hotel working conditions initiative in Long Beach, a sales tax increase in Pasadena and a measure in Los Angeles to create a public bank.

Measure WW on the Long Beach ballot applies to hotels in the city with more than 50 rooms. It requires “double-time pay” for employees who clean more than 4,000 square feet of room space in an eight-hour day, caps the number of hours worked at 10 hours per day and requires hotel employers to offer panic buttons to employees, so they can report threatening conduct.

Hotels with union labor agreements would be exempt from the room cleaning and hourly requirements but not from the panic-button provision. Unite HERE Local 11, which represents hotel workers, is the principal backer of the measure.

A statement from the BizFed board called the measure an effort by the hotel workers union to force more hotels to unionize.

“Long Beach Measure WW (is) an attempt by organized labor to create a (different) set of rules for their employees under the guise of safety,” the statement read.

The business group also voted to oppose a 3/4-cent increase in the sales tax in Pasadena, from 9.5 percent to 10.25 percent. The sales tax would be used for general purposes.

“The city has made no attempt to cut costs before asking the voters to raise the sales tax,” the BizFed statement opposing the measure said. “Should this measure pass, it will make Pasadena among the highest sales tax cities in California.”

BizFed’s board also voted to oppose a measure on the Los Angeles city ballot to create a city-run public bank that would accept deposits and make loans to economically disadvantaged residents, marijuana dispensary operators and others who have difficulty finding banking services elsewhere.

“Voters are being misled to believe that the creation of this municipal bank is a viable alternative to traditional banks or a solution to challenges such as lack of affordable housing,” the BizFed statement opposing the measure said. “The city’s own chief legislative analyst has already identified that there is no funding source to capitalize a bank, that this bank will have difficulty providing adequate collateral to support the City banking requirements, and that start-up costs are exorbitant with no available source of funds to cover them.”

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