[Boot Bass...] Businesses seek to overturn hotel and airport wage hikes by forcing a citywide election

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-30/hotel-airport-wage-
referendum

A coalition of airlines, hotels and concession companies at Los Angeles 
International Airport filed paperwork Thursday to force a citywide vote on 
a new ordinance hiking the minimum wage of hotel and airport workers to 
$30 per hour by 2028.

The group, known as the L.A. Alliance for Tourism, Jobs and Progress, is 
hoping to persuade voters to repeal the ordinance. But first, the alliance 
would need to gather about 93,000 signatures within 30 days to qualify the 
measure for the ballot in an upcoming election.

Phil Singer, a spokesperson for the alliance, said the wage increase 
“threatens revenue Los Angeles urgently needs” — and its standing as the 
host of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“Small businesses will be forced to shut down, workers will lose their 
jobs, and the economic fallout will stretch across the city,” Singer said 
in an email. “We’re fighting for all of it: the city’s future, the jobs 
that sustain our communities, and the millions of guests the tourism 
industry proudly serves year after year.”

The new ballot measure campaign comes just two days after Mayor Karen Bass 
signed the minimum wage legislation into law.

The wage ordinance has been hotly opposed by an array of L.A. business 
organizations, which argue that it increases wages in the tourism industry 
too much and too quickly. However, it was welcomed by unions representing 
hotel and airport employees, which have supported many of the politicians 
who backed the measure.

The alliance’s campaign committee has received major funding from Delta 
Airlines, United Airlines and the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., Singer 
said. The group’s petition, submitted to the city clerk’s office, was 
signed by five businesspeople, including Greg Plummer, operator of an LAX 
concession company; Mark Beccaria, a partner with the Hotel Angeleno on 
L.A.’s Westside; and Alec Mesropian, advocacy manager with the 
organization known as BizFed.

The alliance is targeting a law that’s slated to push the hourly minimum 
wage to $22.50 on July 1 for housekeepers, parking attendants and hotel 
restaurant workers, as well as LAX skycaps, baggage handlers and 
concession employees. The wage would jump to $25 in 2026 and $27.50 in 
2027.

The wage increase was spearheaded by Unite Here Local 11, the hotel and 
restaurant worker union, and by Service Employees International Union 
United Service Workers West, which represents private-sector airport 
workers.

Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, called the business 
group’s proposal “shameful” and promised his union’s members would go “toe 
to toe out on the streets” with the alliance’s signature gatherers.

“The hotel industry’s greed is limitless,” Petersen said. “They would 
rather spend millions getting them to sign this petition than pay their 
workers enough to live in Los Angeles. It’s shameful, but we’re confident 
that Angelenos will see through their deceptions and stand with workers.”

Under the city’s laws, hotel and airport workers have minimum wages that 
are higher than those who are employed by other industries.

The hotel minimum wage, approved by the council in 2014, is currently 
$20.32 per hour. The minimum wage for private-sector employees at LAX is 
$25.23 per hour, which includes a $5.95 hourly healthcare payment.

For nearly everyone else in L.A., the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 
cents higher than the state’s. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.

Backers of the airport and hotel minimum wage hikes say they will help 
some of the region’s lowest paid workers cover the rising cost of rent and 
food, while also giving them more disposable income to spend locally, 
delivering a boost to the region’s economy.

Detractors say it will undermine efforts by L.A.’s tourism industry to 
recover from the decline in business that was sparked by the outbreak of 
COVID-19 five years ago. They contend the ordinance will lead to layoffs, 
while also chilling development of new hotels.

The ordinance also requires airport and hotel businesses to provide an 
hourly healthcare payment — on top of the minimum wage — that starts at 
$7.65 in July and is expected to go up each year. (Hotels will be exempted 
from that requirement until 2026.)

Once the healthcare requirement is included, some businesses will be 
required to pay their workers an additional 60% over a three-year period, 
opponents of the wage increase say.


-- 
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.