Long Point Development has shelled out $1 million to defeat a ballot measure that would boost minimum wage and worker safety for employees of its resort in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Long Point, which owns Terranea Resort, is battling Measure B, which voters in the small city of Rancho Palos Verdes will decide on next month, according to the Los Angeles Times.
If approved, the measure would require large resorts that include Terranea Resort and the nearby Trump National Golf pay employees a minimum of $15 an hour and implement regular raises through 2022. It would also require that employees who work in isolated areas and are vulnerable to sexual assault or harassment be provided panic buttons.
Hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 organized the ballot measure and has spent $75,000 on the campaign. The union led a strike at two dozen hotels across Los Angeles late last year. Panic buttons for employees were among the demands of that strike, along with more affordable healthcare options and higher wages.
Workers agreed to contracts with at least nine hotels in the months after the strike began, but other strikes carry on.
Long Point announced earlier this month that it’s now providing personal alarms for employees and resort president Terri Haack claims the ballot measure is part of Unite Here’s wider two-year effort to unionize workers at the hotel without a secret ballot, which the resort agreed to in early 2018.
If approved, the measure could cost the resort up to $8 million through 2022, according to an independent analysis. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch