The California Grocers Association (CGA) filed new federal lawsuits last week against two more Southern California cities that are mandating an additional $5 an hour in ‘hero’ pay for grocery store workers.
Hero pay is a temporary boost in pay provided to employees who have worked on the front lines since COVID-19 emerged as a health hazard in March 2020.
The cities of San Leandro and West Hollywood approved the extra pay mandates, which the CGA alleges violate the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by targeting only certain grocery store employees while ignoring other essential frontline workers, such as nurses and physicians.
Other ‘hero pay’ lawsuits that have been filed by the CGA are against the cities of Long Beach, Montebello and Oakland.
“A lot of these emergency ordinances are done with the very unfair 24-hour agenda process,” CGA president Ron Fong said. “They are only required to put up the public agenda 24 hours in advance of a vote, which gives us no time to do any sort of lobbying or to tell them our side of the story.”
As previously reported, the city and county of Los Angeles have been on the verge of passing a similar ordinance and the CGA has sent a letter of opposition.
“The attorneys have been discussing it attorney-to-attorney but Los Angeles has already agendized the proposal for this week and we fully expect for them to move forward,” Fong said.
The city of Los Angeles is expected to continue their discussion on Feb. 23 while Palm Springs will discuss their ‘hero’ pay proposal on Feb. 24, according to Fong.
“Until we have a passed ordinance, we don't initiate a lawsuit because we don't file on speculation,” he said. “We need to see the words on the actual ordinance before we decide our causes of action and move forward.”
California Grocers Association v. The city of West Hollywood is currently pending before Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in the Central District of California while California Grocers Association v. The city of San Leandro is pending before Judge Alex Tse in the Northern District of California.