On June 29, 2022, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to approve a Health Care Workers Minimum Wage Ordinance (the “Ordinance”). This comes after a 10-2 vote on June 21 required a second reading and vote. The ordinance was originally submitted as an initiative petition to the city clerk with voter signatures in May 2022. Under the ordinance, covered health care workers must be paid a minimum wage of $25 an hour beginning on effective date of the ordinance. On January 1, 2024, the minimum wage will increase further based on the Consumer Price Index for the greater Los Angeles area.
According to the ordinance, “health care worker” is defined as an employee who is employed to work in a covered health care facility to provide patient care, health care services, or services that support the delivery of health care. This includes doctors, professionals, non-professionals, nurses, nursing assistants, assistants, technicians, maintenance workers, janitorial or cleaning staff, janitors, food service workers, pharmacists, laundry workers, and office workers and administrative
Covered health care facilities include acute care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, licensed skilled nursing facilities that are part of a general acute care hospital or psychiatric hospital, and licensed dialysis clinics. More broadly, the Ordinance covers all facilities that are part of an Integrated Health Care System, which is defined as any system that includes both one or more hospitals and groups of covered physicians (a group practice medical with 10 or more doctors), health service plans. , medical foundation clinics, or other facilities where the hospital and other entities are related to each other through parent/subsidiary relationships, contractual relationships with a common business name, or contractual relationships through an affiliated hospital system. Public hospitals, nursing homes that are not affiliated with hospitals and community clinics are not covered by the ordinance.
Employers cannot fund minimum wage increases by reducing healthcare workers’ hours, higher pay rates or shift differentials, or non-wage benefits such as vacation, health care or subsidizing parking costs. Employers also cannot fire healthcare workers to finance the minimum wage increases required by the Ordinance.
Employers have the right to request a one-year exemption from the ordinance’s minimum wage requirements if they can demonstrate that compliance would raise substantial doubts about the employers’ ability to operate as a going concern.
The ordinance will take effect after receiving Mayor Garcetti’s signature, which is expected soon.
