[Bozo Bass...] L.A. council backs $30 minimum wage for hotels, despite warnings from tourism industry

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-14/council-hikes-hotel-
minimum-wage-despite-warnings-from-tourism-companies

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve a sweeping package 
of minimum wage increases for workers in the tourism industry, despite 
objections from business leaders who warned that the region is already 
facing a slowdown in international travel.

The proposal, billed by labor leaders as the highest minimum wage in the 
country, would require hotels with more than 60 rooms, as well as 
companies doing business at Los Angeles International Airport, to pay 
their workers $30 per hour by 2028.

That translates to a 48% hike in the minimum wage for hotel employees over 
three years. Airport workers would see a 56% increase.

On top of that, hotels and airport businesses will be required to provide 
new or increased hourly pay for their workers’ healthcare. Council 
President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he expects that amount will reach 
$8.35 per hour in July 2026.

The package of increases was approved on a 12-3 vote, with Councilmembers 
John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez opposed. Because the tally was 
not unanimous, a second vote will be required next week.

Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, told her 
colleagues that the proposal would cause hotels and airport businesses to 
cut back on staffing, resulting in job losses. The same thing is happening 
at City Hall, with elected officials considering staff cuts to cover the 
cost of employee raises, she said.

“We are right now facing 1,600 imminent layoffs because the revenue is 
just not matching our expenditures,” Rodriguez said. “The same will happen 
in the private sector.”

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, standing before a crowd of unionized 
workers after the vote, celebrated their victory.

“It’s been way too long, but finally, today, this building is working for 
the people, not the corporations,” said Soto-Martínez, a former organizer 
with the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here Local 11.

Hotel owners, business groups and airport concession companies predicted 
the wage increases will deal a fresh blow to an industry that never fully 
recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. They pointed to the recent drop-off 
in tourism from Canada and elsewhere that accompanied President Trump’s 
trade war and tightening of the U.S. border.

Adam Burke, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Tourism and 
Convention Board, said Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands 
and the United Kingdom — nations that send a large number of visitors to 
Los Angeles — have issued formal advisories about visiting the United 
States.

“The 2025 outlook is not encouraging,” Burke said.

Several hotel owners have warned that the higher wage will spur them to 
scale back their restaurant operations. A few flatly stated that hotel 
companies would steer clear of future investments in the city, which has 
long served as a global tourism destination.

Jackie Filla, president and chief executive of the Hotel Assn. of Los 
Angeles, said she believes that hotels will close restaurants or other 
small businesses on their premises — and in some cases, shut down 
entirely.

In the short term, she said, some will tear up their “room block” 
agreements, which set aside rooms for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic 
Games.

“I don’t think anybody wants to do this,” Filla said. “Hotels are excited 
to host guests. They’re excited to be participating in the Olympics. But 
they can’t go into it losing money.”

Jessica Durrum, a policy director with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New 
Economy, a pro-union advocacy group, said business leaders also issued 
dire warnings about the economy when previous wage increases were approved 
— only to be proved wrong. Durrum, who is in charge of her group’s Tourism 
Workers Rising campaign, told the council that a higher wage would only 
benefit the region.

“People with more money in their pockets — they spend it,” she said.

Wednesday’s vote delivered a huge victory to Unite Here Local 11, a potent 
political force at City Hall. The union is known for knocking on doors for 
favored candidates, spending six figures in some cases to get them 
elected.

Unite Here Local 11 had billed the proposal as an “Olympic wage,” one that 
would ensure that its members have enough money to keep up with inflation. 
The union, working with airport workers represented by Service Employees 
International Union-United Service Workers West, also said that 
corporations should not be the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games 
in 2028.

Workers from both of those unions testified about their struggles to pay 
for rising household costs, including rent, food and fuel. Some pleaded 
for better healthcare, while others spoke about having to work multiple 
jobs to support their families.

“We need these wages. Please do what’s right,” said Jovan Houston, a 
customer service agent at LAX. “Do this for workers. Do this for single 
families. Do this for parents like myself.”

Sonia Ceron, 38, a dishwasher at airline catering company Flying Food 
Group, said she has a second job cleaning houses in Beverly Hills for 
about 32 hours a week. Ceron lives in a small studio apartment in 
Inglewood, which has been difficult for her 12-year-old daughter.

“My daughter, like every kid, wants to have her own room, to be able to 
call her friends and have her privacy,” Ceron said. “Right now, that’s 
impossible.”

L.A.’s political leaders have enacted a number of wage laws over the last 
few decades. The hotel minimum wage, approved by the council in 2014, 
currently stands at $20.32 per hour. The minimum wage for private-sector 
employees at LAX is $25.23 per hour, once the required $5.95 hourly 
healthcare payment is included.

For nearly everyone else in L.A., the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 
cents higher than the state’s.


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.