A bill requiring hotels to use fitted sheets and provide mops to housekeepers is headed to the state Assembly Appropriations Committee next week.
Unite Here Local 11 is among the hotel workers unions that support approval of the bill. Locally, about 2,100 members in Unite Here Local 11 work at Disney-owned Paradise Pier Hotel, Grand California Hotel & Spa and Disneyland Hotel.
Senate Bill 432 was sponsored by Sen. Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles. De Leon said the bill is meant to prevent workplace injuries to housekeepers who must lift heavy mattresses to change flat sheets and get on their hands and knees to clean bathroom floors.
“There are cases of these workers having herniated disks, sciatica, bursitis and torn rotator cuffs,” De Leon said. “This sounds like the NFL or the NBA, but it’s not. These are the hotel workers.”
Hyatt Hotels Corp. is the only major hotel chain to publicly oppose the bill, which was approved Wednesday by the Assembly’s Labor & Employment Committee.
A proviso in the bill allows for the Occupational Safety & Health Administration to give an exemption to hotels that currently implement safety standards for housekeepers.
Disney spokeswoman Suzi Brown said housekeepers are given a ‘bed wedge’ to lift mattresses.
Brown said the triangular-shaped device is inserted between the mattress and box spring to elevate the mattress and allow workers to change sheets.
“The safety of our cast is always our top priority,” she said in a prepared statement. “And we have provided our housekeepers various tools, including a bed wedge, that allows them to perform their work in an ergonomically correct way.”
Union spokeswoman Leigh Shelton said Disney needs to do more.
“Since they’ve had these tools, there are still workers who have gotten injured,” Shelton said.
The union and Disney are currently at odds regarding a new contract.
If passed on by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, the bill could be up for approval by the full Assembly within four weeks, said Greg Hayes, a De Leon aide.
Follow the Register’s coverage of the Disney union issue HERE.
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Hotel union gets win in state Assembly is a post from: Around Disney
