California’s Hyatt Regency Long Beach slapped with $4.8 million Right to Recall fine

The Hyatt Regency Long Beach has been ordered by the California Labor Commissioner (LCO) to pay just under $4.8 million dollars to employees it should have rehired under the newly-extended Right to Recall law.

According to a press release from the Department of Labor Relations, the California hotel laid off 25 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, including restaurant and event servers, cashiers, stewards, bartenders, housepersons and turndown attendants.

“Some of these employees had as much as 24 years of experience, and were suddenly out of work due to a public health emergency,” said labor commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower. “The employer failed to offer them their old jobs back in compliance with the law.”

Right to Recall investigation included interviewing HR managers

The LCO received complaints from several former Hyatt employees in September of 2022 and began an investigation that included interviewing workers, issuing subpoenas and conducting depositions of HR managers.

A citation was eventually issued against Hyatt Regency Long Beach for 8,983 aggregate violation days under the Right to Recall law (SB 93).

The union representing the workers, Unite Here Local 11, stated the fine against Hyatt Regency Long Beach is the largest Right to Recall issuance so far, the Los Angeles Times reported. The union also said that the law focuses on seniority, preventing employers from using the pandemic as an opportunity to shut out older workers and bring in a younger, cheaper workforce.

Right to Recall law extended for another year, conditions added

The Right to Recall law was set to expire at the end of 2024, but on October 10, 2023 California senator Gavin Newsom signed SB 723 into law, extending the “sunset date” to December 31, 2025. It stipulates that an employer will be fined $500 per worker for every day of violation of the law.

As HRD reported, SB 723 also expanded the parameters of the law, by adding, “There shall be a presumption that a separation due to a lack of business, reduction in force, or other economic, nondisciplinary reason is due to a reason related to the COVID-19 pandemic, unless the employer establishes otherwise by a preponderance of the evidence.”

In July 2022, the LCO fined the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, for not rehiring 53 of its laid off hotel employees.

The amendment to the law also changed the definition of “laid off employee” from “any employee who was employed by the employer for 6 months or more in the 12 months preceding January 1, 2020,” to any employee employed by the employer for 6 months anytime, “whose most recent separation from active service  employment by the employer occurred on or after March 4, 2020, and  was due to a reason related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a public health directive, government shutdown order, lack of business, a reduction in force, or other economic, nondisciplinary reason due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”