Consistent with the increased safety protections that we have seen put in place in the hotel industry for hotel workers throughout California over the past few years, the City of Los Angeles recently passed an Ordinance to further regulate hotel worker safety. Effective August 12, 2022, the Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance requires hotel employers to provide Personal Security Devices (i.e., panic buttons) to every hotel worker assigned to work in a guest room or bathroom alone. A Personal Security Device cannot be a whistle, noise-maker, alarm bell, or other similar device. The Device must provide direct contact between the worker and the hotel’s designated security officer or it will not be compliant. Hotel employers in Los Angeles are also required to provide training to workers on the purpose and use of these panic buttons.  

In addition to implementing the use of panic buttons, the Ordinance also requires Los Angeles hotel employers to post signs on the back of the entrance door to each hotel guest room and hotel restroom facility stating that the “The Law Protects Hotel Workers From Threatening Behavior.” The notice must reference hotel employers’ obligation to provide:

• Panic buttons, 
• Paid time off to report threatening behavior, and
• Reasonable accommodations to any worker subjected to threatening behavior.

The English and Spanish versions of the required notices can be found here (English) and here (Spanish).

The Ordinance also includes a record preservation provision which requires Los Angeles hotel employers to maintain records related to room attendants for 3 years, including rates of pay, identification of rooms cleaned, square footage of each room cleaned, overtime hours worked and training records. Various other requirements are set forth in the Ordinance related to workload limitations, overtime, and rates of pay. Details on the requirements set forth in the Ordinance can be found here.  

Notably, this Ordinance only applies to hotels located in the City of Los Angeles; however, similar laws are already in place in Long Beach and Oakland. We expect to see surrounding cities and counties following suit and we would not be surprised to see some statewide legislation in this area in 2023. If you are a hotel employer in Los Angeles, you should immediately begin to comply with this Ordinance. Hotel employers in other areas of California should check to see if they are covered by other similar ordinances. Even if your California hotel property is not covered by such an ordinance, it would be prudent to consider providing panic buttons to your room attendants and implementing similar safety precautions to get ahead of the trend and to help protect against liability in any negligence lawsuit filed by a hotel worker in California that works in guest rooms or bathrooms.