New York City has the country’s most progressive employment laws, reflecting its City Council’s commitment to workers and their families. Innumerable laws protect workers from discrimination and unsafe working conditions. Workers are also free to organize and join labor unions. Nevertheless, the City Council has now decided that its role is to push legitimate small businesses aside and create a glide path for a powerful labor union, upending longstanding business and threatening the city’s hotel and tourism industry. This effort will destroy livelihoods, make hotels more expensive, and hurt the city’s economy. Int 991, risibly titled the “Safe Hotels Act,” would require hotels to upend business relationships and fire thousands of subcontracted workers, supposedly in the name of public safety. But the bill’s real goal is to re-engineer NYC’s hotel industry so that only expensive, unionized hotels can legally operate. On Oct. 2, the Hotel Association of New York City (HANYC), claiming to represent the entire hotel industry in New York, dropped its opposition to this bill, appeasing its board of large union owners, effectively leaving smaller, family-owned hotels in the outer boroughs to fend for themselves. HANYC says the bill’s new version is acceptable to the industry, but it continues to ignore legitimate concerns of our minority-owned small businesses members, including limitations on subcontracted workers and other operational burdens. As a national organization representing thousands of minority hotel owners in all 50 states, we have never seen anything like this. We, along with scores of hotel owners and subcontractors, will continue to stand up and fight for our businesses — even if HANYC will not. The bill would annihilate smaller, family-owned hotels’ business models by dictating staffing requirements and eliminating their ability to use subcontractors to provide housekeeping, front desk, and maintenance staff. Dozens of subcontracting companies, most owned by women and people of color who have risen through the ranks in the hospitality industry, would be forced to fire thousands of employees. All would have to look for another path to the American dream. It’s important to consider how we got here. Over the past few years, the NYC Hotel & Gaming Trades Council (HTC) has become politically powerful in part by making millions of dollars in campaign contributions to elected officials and making political endorsements. It’s clear that public discussion surrounding the so-called “Safe Hotels Act” has largely ignored the underlying issues because elected officials fear angering the union regardless of the public policy ramifications. Sponsors say this bill is about human trafficking, but trainings for all employees — union or non-union — are already mandated by state law. They say it’s about closing “bad actor” hotels, but the city already has tools for doing just that. They say it’s about public safety, but there is no evidence that hotels using subcontractors are any less safe. In fact, this bill will undermine safe staffing levels by preventing the use of subcontracted companies whose sole purpose is to ensure safe staffing levels. No, the real reason for this bill is very simple: to help the HTC increase its membership without traditional organizing with a free and fair election process. Despite monopolizing hotel union membership in New York City for more than 50 years, the HTC continues to be challenged with growing its membership. Employees in non-union hotels have not been interested in what the union is offering, and HTC’s organizing efforts have fallen flat. Now, the HTC has resorted to pushing the Council to bully those workers into joining their union by eliminating all other work opportunities. It’s no wonder HTC catered to HANYC with its board of union-friendly industry bigwigs and left smaller hotels out of the conversation when negotiating this “compromise” bill. New York’s hotels are safe, clean and welcoming to millions of travelers every year. According to TripAdvisor, NYC hotels receive high ratings for cleanliness and service, with non-union hotels often rated equal to or higher than union hotels. Growing NYC’s hospitality and tourism economy should be of foremost concern to the Council, rather than favoring the most powerful players in the industry over family businesses. Supporters of this bill should pause to reflect on the real-world results of passing it: thousands of hard-working subcontractors fired, hotel room rates sent through the roof, the city’s tourism economy and the tax dollars it generates cratered, and hundreds of affordable, high-quality non-union hotels pushed out of business. If Council members truly want to benefit both their constituents and the city as a whole, they will shelve this bill forever. Blake is the president & CEO of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA).