TITLE
Recommendation to respectfully request City Attorney to draft a proposed ordinance requiring future concessions contractors at Long Beach Airport and Convention Center provide the City with contractual assurance of labor peace to avoid interruption of City revenues and present to the City Council within 30 days.
DISCUSSION
The City of Long Beach has a significant proprietary interest in our Long Beach Airport and Long Beach Convention Center.
Labor peace agreements arise when a local government asserts a "proprietary interest" in a particular facility and requires firms doing business at this location to agree to term outlining its engagement with an employee organization which ensures that labor disruptions such as strikes, pickets, or protests will not disturb the local government's financial interest.
Our revenues from its concessions at the Airport and Convention Center are largely dependent on the concessions' workers and unions not engaging in a strike or boycott. Therefore, mandating labor peace at the Airport and Convention Center would better suit the City of Long Beach.
Labor peace ordinances have been passed in multiple jurisdictions nationwide and typically cover hotels, restaurants, casinos, other hospitality facilities, and airports. Beginning in San Francisco, California, labor peace agreements have spread rapidly and now exist in at least 11 states.
Other cities such as Los Angeles have adopted requirements for future concessions contractors that they have entered into agreements with unions organizing concession workers committing to not engage in strikes or boycotts which would interfere with the locality's proprietary interests in uninterrupted revenues. Workers and unions have legal rights to strike and boycott which means the City cannot directly ban such activities, but unions and workers can enter into binding waivers of such rights in an agreement with the employer.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
STEVEN NEAL
COUNCILMEMBER, NINTH DISTRICT
VICE MAYOR ROBERT GARCIA
COUNCILMEMBER, FIRST DISTRICT
SUJA LOWENTHAL
COUNCILMEMBER, SECOND DISTRICT