City Council will likely approve a resolution at their meeting tonight certifying Kirkpatrick Enterprises International as a certified public housekeeping training organization to provide training to West Hollywood’s hotel room attendants.
The move is part of last year’s Hotel Worker Ordinance, which required that a public housekeeping training and education program be established to “ensure West Hollywood’s hotel room attendants have the knowledge and skills to protect their own rights and public health and safety.”
Kirkpatrick Enterprises International will be responsible for
● conducting a training program
● administering an examination that tests basic proficiency in the required training elements, and issuing a certificate to each room attendant who successfully completes the training and examination.
West Hollywood’s hotels are responsible for paying the Public Housekeeping Training Organization for their employees’ training, examination, certification, and recertification. The City will have an on-going administrative role collecting the training certificates and providing oversight to the training organization.
Kirkpatrick was the only company to apply for the city’s request for proposals. The Valencia-based company was also awarded a contract to provide these services to the city of Santa Monica, after which WeHo’s City Council modeled its own Hotel Worker Ordinance. The UNITE HERE Local 11 labor union was instrumental in designing and lobbying for both policies. The company describes itself as thus:
“Founded in 1990 to provide training and implementation programs for companies in the manufacturing and service industries. Our founder, Gordon Kirkpatrick has developed and secured over 250 State Funded Programs for companies in the hotel, automotive, aerospace, food, service, and construction industry, among others, in order to increase workforce development and promote employment in California. Our company has expanded its services to include popular programs such as ERP, VESL, Lean Manufacturing, 6 Sigma, Leadership Skills, Management Skills, Lean Safety, Safety Culture, and just recently (since 2019!) added the Certified Public Housekeeping Program to the many customized training curricula offered to our clients. Our bilingual seasoned facilitators have been with the company for decades and have education in Business, Marketing, Process Improvement, and Occupational Safety.”
Glad to see this. When my sister, on Summer Break from San Diego State, had a Summer job as a maid at
Training of this sort used to be the forte of unions – such as IBDW with its apprenticeship program. I joined the Seafarers Union in 1958 because it province training for me to obtain my able-bodied seaman’s peers. What about the union the city hosted not do long ago – the hotel worj=kers union…???
Anyone that ever attended summer camp or boarding school learned how to make their beds, keep their footlockers in order and general surroundings clean and tidy. Now someone has a business charging gullible Weho for this visibly, senseless scam that is undoubtedly manipulated by Unite.
What West Hollywood needs is to clean up the City Council! With the exception of Meister, this is the biggest collection of moronic idiots ever to be elected. Especially the SHE. A transplant from Iran and two hicks from the Midwest. What is great to see is a Democrat City turning on these three Democrats. Especially Erickson. The two women are sort of second players next to the egomaniacal so-called star. Erickson. Ugh!🧐
I worked for Ramada Inns & Holiday Inns for years. We had a head housekeeper that trained maids how to clean. West Hollywood needs a firm to do this?
Unreal. The stupidity has no limit.
What is this obsession with hotel housekeeping?! Ugh.
Hey, City Council, how is this any of your business? These workers should be smart enough to learn the skills they need on their own, and if they aren’t they aren’t smart enough to do the job well with or without training. Your condescension towards them is disgusting! Keep your busy-body noses out of the private sector and let the market take care of it, which it always does unless people like you come in and screw it up. You’re not needed here!
Heilman & Duran to right the train.
H & D inadvertently set up the current misadministration of civic responsibilities. For some reason you appear unable to contemplate that. Selecting the most palatable from the least is not the answer. The structure is flawed in many ways. As former City Atty. Mike Jenkins said, “we will continue to make it up as we go along until the courts tell us otherwise”. Contemplating legal action against individuals that thwart municipal government standards and responsibilities is not a reasonable remedy by residents of the city. H & D put into practice unsustainable methods of running a city. Yes, they are… Read more »
The train started going off the tracks as soon as Jenkins set up his own law firm. The focus shifted from giving sound legal advise to “how do I keep this lucrative contract”.
Sounds plausible. And how about a Director that maintains a consulting business whose clients manage to snag the RFP’s to be first in line?
Yes, right the train.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMyxYknaYaA
Randy, what a wonderful rejoinder!
Too bad most people won’t hit the link but it is a treat.
It is important to forgive but that does not mean you should forget.
Steve-a-rino, thank you! 🙂 That video makes me giggle, every time.
We need more smiles!
Sickening use of public funds. Why are the hotel housekeepers entitled to more rights than the rest of us working people?
Why is the city council wasting their time with this?! Housekeeper training?!? Pretty sure I didnt have to fold my own towels or make my bed the last time I stayed at a hotel.
Only one company applied to run the program. It sounds like a scam and I’m sure that unite here or one of their directors or their family members is profiting from this organization.
You can never trust an organization that is required by government that only has one vendor.