Oakland Radisson Hotel owners sued by city over alleged $400K wage theft

The owners of the Radisson Hotel Oakland Airport are facing a lawsuit from the city alleging that it underpaid workers by more than $400,000.

In the suit, Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker alleges that the hotel owners, Oakland Alameda Hotels LLC, didn't pay 128 employees their proper minimum wage rates from July 2019 through April 2020.

Oakland's Measure Z requires hotels to pay workers $15 per hour with health benefits or $20 per hour without health benefits.

"In filing this lawsuit, Oakland is standing up for the low-wage workers of our City," Parker said. "We will continue to use all the legal tools available to us to protect the rights of all workers to be treated with dignity and to receive the wages they are entitled to under Oakland law."

In October and December of 2023, the city sent two letters to hotel management asking them to pay up or file an appeal, and earlier this month, Parker sent a letter warning that litigation was imminent.

"For too long, we have endured injustices at the hands of our former employer. Today's lawsuit gives us hope that justice will prevail and that no worker should suffer wage theft," said former Radisson worker Ana Bermudez.

In the suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, Parker is asking that the hotel fork over the $404,491.43 allegedly owed to workers and to also levy a $1,000 fine, plus 10 percent interest, to each of the 128 workers in question.

A hotel representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.