ANAHEIM, Calif. — It’s a fight for $25 an hour. 

In what is sure to be a lively and contentious city council meeting on Tuesday, the Anaheim City Council will consider passing an ordinance requiring the city’s hotels, motels and event centers, including city-owned properties such as the Anaheim Convention Center and Angel Stadium, to pay its workers $25 an hour.

The seven-member council will decide whether to mandate the so-called “Hospitality Bill of Rights,” a hotel and service union-led initiative providing workers higher wages, job protections, security and more.

The initiative, backed by Unite Here Local 11, would impact more than 150 hotels and motels in the city and publicly and privately owned event centers with more than 20,000 square feet of space, such as the Anaheim Convention, Angel Stadium, Honda Center and the City National Grove of Anaheim.

Union officials have said their 32,000 members, many of those working in Anaheim hotels, have suffered the most during the coronavirus pandemic with furloughs and layoffs. 

Post-pandemic, union officials said those workers can’t keep up with high inflation, rent increases and more work in an understaffed environment.  

The union, which gathered more than 26,000 signatures from Anaheim voters to put the initiative on the council’s dais, asks hoteliers and event center operators to provide room attendants and other hotel and event workers a $25-an-hour starting rate plus an annual 3% raise. 

The union is also asking for greater worker protections for hotel workers, including:

• During a hotel ownership change, the new owners must retain most workers for at least 90 days
• Hotel operators provide panic buttons for certain hotel workers and a security guard to oversee them
• Require overtime for hotel workers who exceed workload limits
• Prohibit mandatory overtime

A California Hotel and Lodging Association spokesperson said a massive pay increase from $15.50 to $25 an hour could break many hotels' budgets, causing them to go under. 

CHLA spokesperson Pete Hillan told Spectrum News that many hotels already provide the security provisions the union is asking for. 

Both union officials and hoteliers have told Spectrum News they plan to bring their crowd of supporters to the council chambers Tuesday night. 

The City Council will have three options:

1. Adopt the Hospitality Bill of Rights ordinance as stated on the union's initiative
2. Ask city staff to review the ordinance and understand its economic impacts
3. Deny it and push a ballot initiative in 2024, letting Anahein voters decide

If the city asks staff to review the initiative, the report will be presented to the City Council at the next meeting scheduled for June 13.

According to city staff, placing it on the November 2024 ballot would cost the city between $198,891 to $233,265.