FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2002
Contact:  Adam Radinsky, Deputy City Attorney, (310) 458-88327

The Santa Monica City Council recently adopted an ordinance directed at fly-by-night cleaning contractors and the businesses that use them.

In recent years it has been reported that janitors working in many large supermarkets in Southern California, including in Santa Monica, were not being paid the minimum wage and were not receiving other basic protections of state and federal labor laws. Other alleged violations included the failure to pay overtime; the payment of cash without itemized deductions; the failure to give one day’s rest within a seven-day work week; the failure to keep required records; and the failure to secure payment of Workers Compensation. Supermarkets had increasingly “outsourced” their cleaning work to outside contractors who were reportedly violating the labor laws but were often fly-by-night businesses that were difficult to locate and prosecute.

The new Santa Monica law addresses that problem by assuring that all janitorial contractors are licensed. From now on, every local business that uses a janitorial contractor to clean its premises is responsible to assure that the contractor has a valid city business license. If the contractor is unlicensed, the business (as well as the contractor) will be guilty of a criminal offense and subject to penalties of up to one year in jail and $2,700.00 in fines for each violation.

The new law goes into effect on July 11, 2002. It will be enforced by the City Attorney’s Office.

 # # #

This page was last updated on 08/01/05.