As reopening begins, county mulls a requirement to bring back laid-off workers first.

Back in early February, reopening Monterey County seemed like a distant dream. But now that reopening is upon us, businesses are busy hiring workers. County Supervisor Luis Alejo wants to be sure that the people who were laid off are the first ones who get offers to return. So in February he asked the Workforce Development Board to craft a “right to recall” ordinance, which would require hospitality employers to bring back former workers based on seniority. The draft ordinance is expected to come to the Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.

“The request comes from numerous workers I met with on Zoom, who had worked in Monterey County for 10, 20, 30 years,” Alejo says. “It was intended for this very moment – to put workers back to exactly where they were before the pandemic hit.”

(If passed, the ordinance would apply only to unincorporated Monterey County, but Alejo hopes cities would imitate it.)

An estimated 14,000 hospitality workers, about half of the workforce in the industry in Monterey County, were laid off due to the pandemic. It’s unknown, however, how many will not seek rehiring. For example, many former employees of the Monterey Sports Center retired or relocated to places as far away as Canada, though some indicated they would return if their jobs came back, says City Manager Hans Uslar. “We know that a number of our employees have moved on.”

At Cannery Row Company, CEO Ted Balestreri says former employees are first in line even without an ordinance requiring it, but he worries about a seniority mandate: “If you need cooks, and all the waiters have seniority, you’ve got a problem.”