California Legislature, don’t limit how much an office cleaner can do in an hour | Opinion
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, California’s downtown commercial corridors have struggled to rebound and recover. The rise in remote work and decline in tourism have made economic recovery particularly challenging in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco, which has ranked as the slowest downtown to recover in North America.
But just when we thought California’s downtown economic recovery couldn’t get any worse, Assemblymember Luz Rivas, D-San Fernando, introduced Assembly Bill 2364. The bill would skyrocket the costs to clean buildings throughout the state by imposing a first-ever limit on how many square-feet of floors a worker can clean in any given hour.
AB 2364 would set up a seven-member advisory committee under the state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. This committee would somehow have to calculate the hourly limit of square-feet any worker can clean anywhere in California. The division would then establish this cleaning limit as a new state regulation.
Opinion
The bill, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), purports to help California’s janitors by creating safety requirements and a new patchwork of regulations surrounding the area a California janitor is allowed to clean. In reality, the new rule could potentially triple or quadruple maintenance costs in the state, from local schools to downtown office buildings.
Square footage is one of many variables when considering cleaning times and work loading, and it is an insufficient metric for physical exertion by itself. In fact, there is no singular metric that is an acceptable proxy for physical exertion, according to the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association.
Creating an arbitrary limit on the square feet California janitors are allowed to clean will undoubtedly drive up the maintenance costs. Cleaning costs are one of the largest expenses for ongoing maintenance of a building. These additional costs will force businesses to choose between cleaning less frequently, reducing the space that they occupy, or passing higher costs onto consumers and tenants.
The regulation would impact vast reaches of the California economy. Those facing higher cleaning costs include commercial properties, public schools, universities and state buildings. Urban cores with lots of square-footage are uniquely vulnerable. AB 2364 would push companies out of their offices in cities throughout the state.
California’s downtown economic recovery is important not just to big cities, but to communities across our state. The economic stressors of California are front and center with all of us.
Our state already has the highest office vacancy rates in the country - well over 30% in some cities. Nearly half of leases are up for renewal over the next two years with existing tenants pursuing 30% to 40% less space. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, property taxes comprise one-third of the municipal budget, with the largest share coming from commercial buildings. Real estate values tumbled 35% in the last year. This bill will exacerbate these trends, and this is not what we need to improve the health of California.
The unintended consequences of this bill are simply not in the public interest. Professional cleaners who now clean thousands of square feet an hour would be required to draw out their work, for no real reason. This is simply not a field that calls for the cookie-cutter style of regulation that AB 2364 has in mind.
AB 2364 will stifle California’s economy, add to California’s budget deficit, and make it even harder for our downtown neighborhoods to thrive. Regulating the hourly work of the state’s professional cleaners simply is a dangerous idea for the Legislature. It’s time for lawmakers to reject this bill.
Michele Ware is the President of BOMA Greater Los Angeles, representing building owners, managers, developers, leasing professionals, corporate facility managers and asset managers.
