The Brief

Anaheim voters are being asked to decide whether to require hotels and large event centers to pay their workers a minimum of $25 an hour. The initiative, Measure A, would also require hotels to implement safety measures and workload limits for room attendants.

Anaheim voters have through Oct. 3 to cast their ballots in the special election.

The measure is sponsored by the hospitality workers union UNITE HERE Local 11, which has successfully lobbied for similar workload and safety measures in several Los Angeles County cities. This is the same union whose hotel workers in L.A. and O.C. have been on strike, on and off, since June as they battle over new contracts.

Measure A faces strong opposition from hotels. Disney alone has poured $1.5 million into the "No" campaign. The majority of the Anaheim City Council also opposes the measure.

The special election comes as the city grapples with how to address the heavy influence of money and business interests in Anaheim politics. An FBI investigation led to former Mayor Harry Sidhu's recent guilty plea on corruption charges related to the attempted sale of Angel Stadium. And a city-commissioned probe found widespread evidence of influence-peddling and pay-to-play politics in the city.

To date, the PAC opposing Measure A, which calls itself "Anaheim Residents Against Cuts to Essential City Services," has spent five times as much to influence voters as the pro-Measure A union PAC, "Committee for a Healthy Anaheim Resort."

Here's a guide to Measure A for Anaheim residents — and for anyone interested in the issues of livable wages, fair working conditions and the influence of money in elections.

You can find a searchable version of Measure A here.

Measure A, the MANY details

Besides almost immediately raising the minimum wage for hotel and event workers (employers have 30 days to comply), the measure would:

Wages and retention

• Increase the $25 minimum wage by 3% each year, or the equivalent to any rise in the local Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater. This would start in 2026.
• Require employers to give the entirety of any service charge billed to a guest (essentially a built-in tip) to the worker or workers who did the actual work — excluding supervisors and managers, who would not be entitled to any part of a service charge.  
• If a hotel or event center changes ownership, require the new owner to offer existing employees the chance to stay on for at least 90 days, with some exceptions. 

Safety and workload

• Require hotels to give panic buttons to all room attendants and, for larger hotels, have a security guard on staff to respond to calls for help.
• Limit the square footage that can be assigned to a room attendant for cleaning per work shift. 
• Require hotels and event centers to pay double — at least $50 an hour — for a worker's entire shift if that worker is required to clean more than the square footage limitation. 
• Prohibit hotels from requiring employees to work more than a 10-hour day without their written consent.
• Prohibit hotels from offering incentives for guests to opt out of daily room cleaning.
• Require hotels to maintain detailed records, for three years, about the work done by each room attendant, including each room cleaned and the total square footage cleaned. 

Exemptions

Unionized workplaces are exempt from the rules. But Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster said the exemption is essentially moot because, per the ballot language, both employers and employees would have to agree to an exemption. Employees are not likely to agree to a minimum wage that's lower than the one that would be established by Measure A.

The measure allows the city manager to grant a waiver if an employer can demonstrate that the new rules would require them to lay off more than 20% of its workers or sharply reduce their hours in order to avoid bankruptcy.

Wages, in comparison

If voters pass the initiative, the city that's home to Disneyland, Angel Stadium and the popular Anaheim Convention Center would have the state's highest minimum wage ordinance for hospitality workers — by far.

The Los Angeles City Council is also considering a $25 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers. And in Santa Monica, voters will consider a ballot initiative next year that would raise wages for hotel workers there to $30 an hour.

If Measure A passes, the new minimum wage would apply to an estimated 900 room attendants and potentially thousands of other caterers, bellhops, parking attendants and others who power conventions, concerts and sporting events in the city.

According to a city-funded analysis, a new $25 minimum wage would constitute a 35% increase over the current average wages for the city's rank and file hotel workers.

However, unionized housekeepers in Anaheim make between $21 and $23 an hour, according to a spokesperson for UNITE HERE Local 11.

Anaheim hotels whose employees are currently represented by the union are the Anaheim Hilton, Disney Grand Californian Hotel, Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel and Sheraton Park Hotel.

Employers would have to begin paying the new wages within 30 days after the election results are certified.

UNITE HERE Local 11's workplace campaign

The safety measures and workload limits for hotel workers are nearly identical to rules passed in recent years in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Glendale, Irvine and the city of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors recently voted to consider a similar ordinance.

Earlier this year, Anaheim City Council adopted most of the safety rules for hotel workers, including the panic button requirement. They take effect Jan. 1. Measure A would make the rules binding almost immediately, and prevent them being changed or weakened except by the voters.

According to an external analysis paid for by the city of Anaheim, the proposed workload limitations would restrict room attendants to cleaning about half the space they currently do in some cases, which means hotels might have to hire additional workers to meet their cleaning needs.

UNITE HERE Local 11 co-president Ada Briceño said the workload limits and related wage premiums are intended to discourage employers from over-scheduling room attendants. "The wear and tear on people's bodies when you're doing that work, lifting mattresses that are over 200 pounds, you're getting on your hands and knees every single day, 18, 20 times to scrub toilets and to scrub bathtubs," Briceño said. "We want to make sure people get compensated for the extra work that they have to do."

Arguments for and against Measure A

City officials argue that the new minimum wage would weaken the local economy and damage the city government's finances, potentially forcing it to cut essential city services.

An economic impact analysis commissioned by the city found that the measure could cost Anaheim some $5 million to $6 million in additional labor costs at the Anaheim Convention Center, which the city owns and operates, just in the first year.

(Read the city's economic impact analysis here.)

The analysis estimates that if Measure A passes, the city would go from essentially breaking even on convention center operations this fiscal year to being $8.5 million in the hole.

Councilwoman Natalie Meeks, who represents Anaheim's District 6, called Measure A an "overreach." She said individual employers and their employees, not the city, should determine wages and working conditions. "Bargaining should be done at the bargaining table and not by the voters," Meeks said.

She also said the state, not cities or counties, should set minimum wages.

Even some longtime union supporters are, this time, turning their backs.

"I support the hotel workers," civic activist and former mayoral candidate Cynthia Ward told LAist last month. But she, like Meeks, called Measure A an "overreach."

"The unions need to be out there organizing workers and negotiating with employers based on the strength of their numbers and not the ballot box," Ward said.

On the other side, former Councilmember Jose Moreno, a longtime critic of corporate influence in Anaheim, said he supports Measure A. He called the well-funded campaign against the measure "very misleading" and said the city council had "created a political environment that is now being used against the initiative."

Moreno criticized the council for deciding to hold a special election to consider Measure A — at an estimated cost of $1.5 million — rather than putting it on the November 2024 general election ballot, when more people are likely to vote.

According to the city's website, including Measure A on the 2024 ballot would have been much cheaper — around $200,000.

He also said the council rushed to commission an economic analysis that didn't consider the full potential impacts of the minimum wage hike, including on local tax receipts. Moreno said when working class people make more money, they'll spend it.

"When they spend locally, that creates local jobs … and those jobs create taxes," Moreno said.

The former councilmember said any hit to the city's general fund could be made up by a "gate tax" on tickets to Disneyland and other popular city attractions. The idea has popped up, and been shot down, repeatedly over the years. Last year, the previous city council refused to consider putting a gate tax on the ballot.