Four Montgomery County lawmakers have introduced legislation that would force property owners to keep service workers employed for three months if they end a contract with the workers’ employer. The bill would require property owners who hire contractors to provide janitorial, building maintenance, security, food preparation and nonprofessional health care services to retain the contractors’ employees for 90 days after the building owner ends the contract with the service provider.
Co-sponsored by four County Council members, the bill would apply to private schools, hospitals, nursing homes, museums, airports, concert halls, convention centers, apartment buildings and office buildings larger than 75,000 square feet.
Similar laws exist in the District, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Providence, R.I., according to Council Senior Legislative Attorney Bob Drummer.
Service contracts turn over quickly, leaving the former employees without jobs with little notice, said Councilwoman Valerie Ervin, D-Silver Spring, the lead sponsor of the bill.
“In the course of my life, I have become friends with many of the service workers at the security desk or coming into my office to clean the buildings, and it concerns me a lot that when a new owner buys a building they might just let the staff go overnight,” said Councilman Hans Riemer, D-at large, and another sponsor. “Those are families that had an income one day and don’t have one the next.”
But in protecting the employees of these contracts, the lawmakers have forgotten about the employers, said Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce President Gigi Godwin.
“We oppose favoring one group of employers over another group of employers,” Godwin said, adding that “it’s really hard for government to legislate relationships.”
Businesses like nursing homes and hospitals are subject to state and federal regulations that could require them to change the way they contract out specific services, Godwin said.
And the bill doesn’t ask why the contractor and the employer ended their relationship, she said. It assumes that the contractor didn’t have a better opportunity for its employees elsewhere.
“Sometimes the why isn’t just because somebody is ornery and tried to put people on the street.”
