Duff on Hospitality Law

California employers are currently scratching their heads over how to interpret “suitable seating” that is required under California Wage Orders. Nancy Cooper, member of our Labor and Employment Group and Hospitality, Travel and Tourism practice team, discusses how that term is defined will affect your business. Thank you for today’s post, Nancy! - Greg

On June 2, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to approve a $15 minimum wage ordinance. Mayor Ed Murray signed it the next day. The ordinance provides that all employers will be required to reach the $15 per hour wage over a period of years, depending on their number of employees. Very generally speaking, and subject to a number of specifics touched on below, employers with 500 or fewer employees will be required to pay $10.00 an hour starting on April 1, 2015, and will make annual increases culminating in $15.00 an hour in 2021. Employers with more than 500 employers will need to pay $11.00 an hour starting in April 2015, and will reach $15.00 an hour in 2017 (2018 for employers who contribute to employee health insurance premiums).

Employers are grappling not only with how to manage the logistics of the increased wage, but with how to read the ordinance’s many definitions and exceptions. In the coming months we expect to see rule making and legal challenges that will hopefully clarify the impacts of the ordinance, so stay tuned. This blog post addresses a few of the questions we’ve been hearing so far.

Is hotel rebranding the latest 2014 trend? Claire Hawkins, Chair of Garvey Schubert Barer's Intellectual Property Practice and new author to Duff on Hospitality, weighs in on the topic and offers her insights on the intellectual property elements you'll need to consider. Thank you for today's post, Claire! - Greg