Sonoma hotel would be first to meet ‘Living Wage’ standard

If and when it builds a proposed downtown Sonoma hotel, Kenwood Investments will hire local residents to staff the property and pay them according to the city’s Living Wage Ordinance, to include healthcare benefits.

The agreement with the North Bay Labor Council is a first for Sonoma, and one of only two countywide, said ownership principal Darius Anderson.

The agreement also calls for construction workers to be ‘local’ – in this case from within a 50-mile radius – and that the hotel be “labor neutral,” a provision allowing workers to organize a union to represent them in the future.

“This is a very positive outcome for working people,” said Ben Boyce, a longtime Living Wage Ordinance advocate familiar with the negotiations. “This sets the bar to get public support for these kinds of projects.”

The proposed downtown Sonoma hotel will provide quality living wage jobs and health care with career ladders for local residents, said Lisa Maldonado, executive director of the North Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO. “The council appreciates the commitment of local business leaders such as Kenwood investments to engage in socially and environmentally responsible business practices.”

Boyce said Kenwood Investments will use the City of Sonoma Living Wage standard (currently $14.39/hr) and the regional minimum wage standard ($10/hour as base pay for all tipped workers) as the baseline for all workers at the hotel.

Boyce said the higher wages will benefit the entire community as that money is spent locally. “It’s a virtuous cycle.”

Additionally, Boyce said, “this public endorsement of socially responsible labor practices by the hotel will serve to set the wage and benefit standards for the Wine Country hospitality sector.”

Maldonado said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the willingness of the ownership group to come to an agreement.

Maldonado said her group opposes the proposed Hotel Limitation Ordinance, which calls for a ban on Sonoma hotels with more than 25 rooms unless the city’s overall occupancy rate reaches 80 percent.

Speaking for the initiative, Larry Barnett, chair of the Preserving Sonoma Committee, said he applauds the decision of any employer to pay a living wage to its employees. “It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “It doesn’t change my mind, but I hope the practice of paying a living wage spreads to the other businesses in Sonoma.”

The initiative is about scale and size, he said, not employee wages. “I would expect a 25-room hotel to pay a living wage.”