The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to raise the minimum wage for more than 23,000 tourism workers, a big win for unions whose members have been grappling with rising food, rent and other costs.
Aldermen directed the city attorney in a 12-3 vote. Hydee Feldstein-Soto drafts the legal language needed to raise those wages to a minimum of $30 an hour in July 2028, when the city hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympics .
In a meeting that lasted more than five hours, council members touted the economic benefits of higher tourism wages, saying it would prompt workers to spend more across the region, spurring the creation of thousands of jobs. New employment opportunities.
“When we support low-wage workers, they contribute to our economy and support the city,” said Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, who took office Monday and represents parts of the East Side.
Councilman John Lee, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley, voted against the proposal and warned his colleagues they would “kill the local economy.” Councilmembers Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez also voted against the measure, saying they were concerned hotels and other businesses would scale back operations, lay off workers or shift to automation.
“I hope we don’t create the highest-paid unemployed workforce in the country,” Rodriguez said.
The so-called Olympic wage movement is spearheaded by Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel and restaurant workers, and United Service Workers West, a member of the Service Employees International Union, whose members work at Los Angeles International Airport. Both groups have held rallies, led marches and this week organized a three-day fast by tourism staff stationed outside city hall.
Jovan Houston, a customer service agent at LAX who participated in the fast, said she was “ecstatic” about the vote. Houston, 42, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, believes the pay package will help ease the cost of treatment.
“I’m glad they finally woke up,” she said.
Under the proposal, the minimum wage for restaurant and airport workers would rise by $2.50 annually, starting at $22.50 in July, rising to $25 in July 2026, $27.50 in July 2027, and $27.50 in July 2028. to $30.
At hotels, wages for housekeepers, front desk clerks and other employees will rise 48 percent over 3 1/2 years from the current $20.32 an hour set by the city’s restaurant minimum wage law. They will also receive a new $8.35 hourly medical rate.
The increases will apply to workers at hotels with at least 60 rooms.
By July 2028, the minimum wage for skycaps, cabin cleaners and many other workers at Los Angeles International Airport will increase nearly 56% from the hourly wage currently required by the city’s living wage ordinance. The current minimum wage at Los Angeles International Airport is $19.28 per hour.
Health care costs for these workers will also jump from $5.95 to $8.35 an hour.
Throughout the meeting, hotel and airport workers described their difficulties paying for child care, housing and meals. Some fought back tears as they begged city councilors to approve higher wages.
LSG Sky Chefs employee Lorena Mendez said housing costs have risen so fast that she and her three daughters moved from Inglewood to Bakersfield. Mendez, 55, said she now sleeps on her sister’s couch in Lennox or her mother’s house in Hawthorne several nights a week to avoid a more painful commute.
“We’re not living. We’re surviving, and that’s not fair,” she said.
Business leaders say the wage hikes, combined with new or increased health care costs, will wreak havoc on the city’s hotels and LAX concessionaires. Some hotel owners said they are reconsidering participating in the room-blocking agreements required for the Olympics, while others said they were considering closing their food and beverage operations.
The Lightstone Group, which owns the 727-room Moxy + AC Hotels near the city’s convention center, said the wage proposal could lead to the closure of the Level 8 restaurant on the hotel’s eighth floor.
Lightstone President Mitchell Hochberg said in an Oct. 31 letter to Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson that Level 8 is already struggling to meet the $20.32 an hour required by the city’s hotel minimum wage law.
The city’s overall minimum wage is $17.28 an hour.
“We are already fighting this battle with a minimum wage that is $3 higher than our non-hotel counterparts and are experiencing the effects,” Hochberg wrote. “There’s simply no way we can sustain higher operating costs and still remain competitive.”
Sun Hill Properties President and CEO Mark Davis said the wage proposal “could kill” the company’s plans to expand its Hilton Worldwide hotel. He said the move would result in the loss of about 1,000 planned construction jobs and about 200 “permanent, high-paying jobs” in the city.
David Roland-Holst, an economist hired by the city of Berkeley to evaluate the proposal, largely dismissed the dire warnings.
He told city council he expected hotels to adjust to the increase in labor costs by raising prices by an average of 6 percent. He said that although there will be some job losses, rising wages will ultimately be a “powerful tool for economic growth” and spur the creation of 6,000 full-time jobs in Los Angeles by 2028.
“We have seen no evidence that there will be mass layoffs anywhere in California due to the minimum wage,” Rowland-Holst said.
Even if the commission rejects the proposal, the minimum wage for LAX and hotel workers will continue to increase year over year. City policy analysts said those increases would be tied to the Consumer Price Index.
The proposal is expected to increase pay for more than 40 percent of Los Angeles’ airport workers and more than 60 percent of hotel workers, according to an analysis prepared for the city.
Robert Bowman, an economics professor at the College of Holy Cross who studies the Olympics’ impact on the city, said hotel and airport workers in Los Angeles are in a good position to demand higher wages. He said they “now have a unique influence” as the city hosts events as important as the Olympics.
“The time is ripe for wage increases,” he said.
Even with an increase in minimum wages in the tourism industry, Los Angeles could still see a tight workforce ahead of the 2028 Olympics. That’s because dozens of hotel staff’s contracts are expected to expire in January 2028, about half a year before the Olympics.
As part of Wednesday’s decision, council members asked for an annual review of higher wages in employment, hotel development and other aspects of the tourism industry. They also voted to require a report next year on alternative policy strategies for businesses that lease space in hotels, including restaurants, shops and spas.
Council members rejected a measure that would have cut the number of hotels covered by the wage increases. They also resisted efforts to limit the types of restaurant workers who would be affected by the wage increases.
Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley, voted in favor of the proposal. Still, she said she was disappointed that her colleagues had no interest in addressing some of the concerns about wage increases.
“I voted yes because to me, this is about workers, and to me, this has always been about workers,” she said. “But I’ve always wanted to be able to proudly say that we compromised and that we paid attention to all the stakeholders. Because we really didn’t.
