Business groups warn that proposed Glendale ballot initiative will cost jobs – Chamber Business News

A labor union-affiliated activist group called Worker Power is attempting to secure a spot for an initiative on the fall ballot in Glendale that business groups say would jeopardize thousands of tourism jobs in that city.

City refuses petitions

The Glendale City Clerk refused to accept the group’s petitions to place this measure on the ballot due to the proposal’s violation of the state constitution’s provision that citizen initiatives must be limited to a single subject. That constraint is due to voters’ passage of Proposition 129 in 2022. Prior to the passage of the 2022 measure, a single subject only applied to ballot questions that sought to amend the state constitution. 

The Worker Power group is suing the city over the decision to refuse the petition.

What the initiative would do

• Mandated Wage: Hotel and event center workers would be paid at least $20 per hour, with the wage increased annually depending on changes in the cost of living. 
• Limits on square footage: The amount of square footage a room attendant can clean in a workday would be capped. If the worker exceeds that amount, their pay is doubled for the day.
• Recordkeeping: Hoteliers will have to keep three years’ worth of detailed records of room attendants’ work history, including which rooms the worker cleaned and the amount of square footage. 
• Service charges: If a hotel or event center collects service charges, those funds must be distributed directly to the worker who performed the service for which those fees were collected. Hoteliers could not use service charges to raise the base level of pay for all workers. 
• Wage investigators: The Glendale city government would have to establish a new department to investigate employers and conduct studies of workers.

Potential consequences

Business community stakeholders say if the measure were to pass that the city would be forced either to reduce services like public safety or raise taxes to establish the new labor office that is required under the initiative. 

Hoteliers would also have to face the decision between raising room rates or cutting jobs in order to afford these new regulations. 

The increased rates would make Glendale less attractive to travelers and meeting and convention planners. 

Business groups support city position

Business groups have filed briefs with the trial court in support of the city clerk’s decision to refuse the petitions on the grounds that the proposal violates the single subject rule.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry says, “The Initiative is the poster child of log-rolling… It lumps numerous, unrelated provisions into a single initiative which will force voters to support or oppose it, even though they may agree or disagree with some parts of it… This Court should uphold the City Clerk’s rejection of the Initiative.”

The Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association and the American Hotel Lodging Association filed a joint brief. Those groups said, “The Minimum Wage Act is an unconstitutional hodgepodge of burdensome regulations, from minimum-wage increases, to limits on working hours, to the establishment of an entirely new bureaucratic department, and more. Faced with this sort of constitutionally infirm ballot initiative, the City Clerk had both the authority and the obligation to reject it.” 

Decision soon

A decision on whether the measure will appear on the ballot is expected by Friday. The losing party could choose to appeal the decision.