Three years ago, Oakland accused the Radisson Hotel near the airport of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from its own workers. After a lengthy legal battle, the city has won a major settlement which will be paid to those employees.
The City Council approved an end to the case last Thursday during closed session. The settlement calls for the Radisson’s owners, Oakland Alameda Hotels LLC and Oakland Hotels LLC, and Nupenbhai Patel, the majority shareholder, to pay $600,000 in restitution, interest, and attorney’s fees.
The City Council needs to give final approval for the settlement at its next council meeting on Oct. 20. But city staff are pleased with the outcome.
“We appreciate the defendants’ willingness to settle,” Nora Cassidy, a worker protection attorney for the city attorney’s office, told The Oaklandside. “We’re thrilled the settlement agreement will result in workers getting every penny of the wages they earned back into their pockets.”
In 2023, city investigators determined that the Radisson Hotel on Edes Avenue had violated Oakland’s Hotel Minimum Wage Ordinance by failing to pay workers the correct rates from July 2019 through April 2020. Oakland’s Department of Workplace and Employment Standards, which led the investigation, alleged that this resulted in 128 workers being underpaid.
The department demanded the hotel pay over $404,000 in restitution, making it one of the city’s biggest wage theft cases in recent history. When this didn’t happen, the city attorney filed a lawsuit the following year.
In 2025, the Radisson was put into a court-ordered receivership after it failed to pay back a loan, according to the East Bay Times. Last month, an affiliate of Cardera Health purchased the Radisson property from Berkadia Hotels & Hospitality Group for $15.5 million.
Patel did not respond to an interview request.
Laurel Moeslein, DWES’ deputy director, said her department is actively investigating a portfolio of cases at all times that impact workers, including hotel employees and day laborers. Chuck Baker, interim director of DWES, thanked his colleagues for their work on this case, calling it a “huge milestone” for the city.
“The city is doing this on behalf of workers to recoup city resources,” Baker said.
When the former Radisson workers will actually get paid is not entirely clear. Moeslein said the city reached out to Fair Labor Oakland, a coalition of organizations that support low-wage workers, to let them know about the settlement. The city will be working with the coalition, and the nonprofit East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, to get the word out to employees who may be eligible for restitution.
Saabir Lockett, deputy director of civic engagement at EBASE, said he was thrilled by the settlement. He believes it highlights the importance of funding Oakland’s labor standards department.
“Every budget cycle the city has to reallocate funding, and this is one of the places we know is necessary based on this win we just received,” Lockett told The Oaklandside.
Workers who believe they are the victim of wage theft or other labor violations can file a complaint with DWES here.
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