Statement Against
Vote NO on Initiative 124
We can do better together.
Seattle hotels are committed to a safe and healthy work environment for all team members.
Hotels and workers have partnered to find meaningful and effective solutions to protect workers. That’s why large and small hotels across Seattle are already implementing best practices and technology and working with safety experts to ensure a safe working environment.
In contrast, I-124 was written in isolation and ignored the input of safety experts, hotels and state and local agencies. It is written to protect some workers, while excluding others. It is poorly written and will undermine progress on worker safety because it ignores proven worker safety protocols and it will lead to years of costly courtroom battles to clear up vague, unenforceable and illegal language. And Seattle taxpayers will get stuck with the bill.
Regardless of its intentions, this one-sided initiative is flawed, overreaching and seriously erodes privacy and violates legal protections.
Only protects some hotel workers
I-124 includes an unusual carve out for the unions that wrote the initiative. It allows them (behind closed doors) to negotiate away employee health care benefits, workplace safety protections and worker retention standards in exchange for union representation. This will create a patchwork of contradictory worker protections across the city, which will make enforcement more difficult and costly and will leave hotel workers with different protections.
Violates right to due process
Under I-124, hotels must blacklist any guest accused of harassing a worker, even when there is no legal complaint. Without evidence or investigation, accused guests are permanently blacklisted with no notice and no way to clear their name. We all agree that hotel workers need to be protected, but that’s not our system of justice.
An unfunded, unenforceable initiative
I-124 provides no funding to monitor the 127 hotels across Seattle. Seattle taxpayers will be on the hook for the new city staff and resources necessary to enforce this measure. The city will either have to raise our taxes or take money from other critical priorities to pay for this unfunded initiative.
Reject I-124 – We Can Do Better Together
Seattle works best when we come together – employers, workers, experts and state and local government – to find progressive solutions to our challenges. We've done it before with the $15 minimum wage and we can do it again so that workers, guests and employers all have a voice.
Submitted by:
Jenne Neptune, the president of the Seattle Hotel Association
Maud Smith Daudon, the president and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce
Carla Murray
VoteNo124.com
Rebuttal to Statement Against
Mayor Ed Murray and City Council passed a resolution officially endorsing Initiative 124.
After careful analysis, city staff concluded in their “Summary of Financial Implications” that 124 has no negative financial impacts.
It states:
“This legislation does not have direct financial implications.”
“Does the legislation have indirect or long-term financial impacts to the City of Seattle that are not reflected in the above? NO.”
The opponents now say that hotel employers will correct problems through better self-governance and protect housekeepers from sexual harassment. No doubt some will.
However, laws are never written because of the good behavior of the majority. Rather, they are written to protect people from the bad behavior of a few.
This law was carefully crafted to protect people’s civil liberties while protecting the women working in hotels. As to claims to the contrary …we disagree.
Seattle protects women. That’s who we are; that’s what I-124 does.
Submitted by:
Lorena Gonzalez, Seattle City Councilmember
Pramila Jayapal, State Senator
Nicole Grant, Martin Luther King County Labor Council
www.seattleprotectswomen.org