Industry association asks for full 9th Circuit review of ruling on hotel workers healthcare mandate

Back in March, a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the city in a legal challenge to the its ordinance mandating that hotels provide healthcare benefits to their employees. As expected, the plaintiffs in the case, the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), have asked the full Ninth Circuit to hear the case en banc.

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ERIC revises its lawsuit challenging part of hotel-worker bill

When Initiative 124 passed, it attracted two lawsuits: one that tried to invalidate the entire bill, and another that attacked only one part: the requirement that hotel employers purchase health insurance for their employees.  Last summer, facing an almost certain loss  in the courts, Council member Mosqueda led an effort that repealed I-124 and replaced it with four separate, modified bills that she hoped would resolve the legal challenges in the two cases. But as expected today the plaintiff in the second case, ERIC, filed an updated complaint arguing that the rewritten bill requiring employers to provide healthcase, still violates …

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The legal challenges related to Initiative 124 aren’t over

Earlier this year, Initiative 124 was working its way through the court system — and losing badly. But over the summer Council member Teresa Mosqueda rewrote it to address its legal shortcomings, successfully shepherded the reworked version through the Council’s legislative process, and got the Council to repeal the original I-124 ordinance. That solved the problem with the main lawsuit. But there is a second lawsuit that has been in limbo while the first one played out, and the plaintiffs in that case are forging ahead with their narrower legal challenge.

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Hotel worker bills get fine-tuned, continue to move forward

Last Thursday the Council’s Workers’ Rights committee finished amending three of the four hotel workers’ protection bills, co-sponsored by Council members Mosqueda and Gonzalez to replace Initiative 124. (update 9/9: a couple of corrections below based upon feedback from Council staff. My apologies; several of the amendments weren’t published in advance of the meeting so it was challenging to follow along)

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Hotel workers’ bills draw opposition at public hearing

This evening the City Council held a public hearing on four bills that Council members Mosqueda and Gonzalez have introduced as a replacement for Initiative 124. As expected, hotel workers and labor representatives showed up to urge the Council to pass the ordinances. But hotel managers and other small business owners also showed up in numbers to state their opposition to some of the provisions in the bills – particularly the health insurance mandate.

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