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LA City Council might consider postponing Olympic wage boost for tourism workers
Tourism workers and their supporters rally outside L.A. City Hall.
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Leslie Berestein Rojas
/
LAist
)
A drawn out battle over a city law boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers in Los Angeles seemed like it was finally over this fall when a referendum to overturn it failed to gather enough signatures.
Now there's another twist in the road. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson previously voted to raise airport and hotel worker pay from $22.50 to $30 an hour by 2028, when L.A. will host the Olympics. But in a motion filed Friday, he's proposing that the increase take effect more slowly, instead reaching $30 an hour in 2030.
Harris-Dawson's proposal sparked outcry from hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 and other labor advocates.
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“These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away," Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement. "It’s heartless, it’s callous, and it deepens the crisis of working poverty that is gripping our city.”
Labor advocates say Harris-Dawson is succumbing to pressure from corporate interests.
Over the summer, a coalition of business leaders filed a ballot proposition to repeal the city business tax, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to the city. The L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce told LAist the proposition was partly in response to the City Council boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers.
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Unite Here Local 11 filed its own raft of proposals, including raising the minimum wage citywide and requiring Angelenos to vote on building new hotels and event center developments. This war via ballot proposition led city leaders to encourage both sides to come to a compromise.
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A spokesperson for Harris-Dawson said the city is currently in talks with business and labor interests, and declined to comment further on his recent motion. Mayor Karen Bass's office did not respond to a request for comment.
The motion now goes to council committees on tourism and jobs.
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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