With the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games over and attention shifted to the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, tourism industry workers who could impact whether tourists get a world-class hospitality experience in L.A. are ramping up pressure on the city to increase their minimum wages.
Hotel and airport workers “occupied” a section of the sidewalk at L.A. City Hall, beating drums and tooting blow horns ahead of the Tuesday, Sept. 10, City Council meeting. They set up tents and a clothesline to resemble a homeless encampment in hopes, organizers said, of driving home the message that some workers are one paycheck away from homelessness.
Some participants also addressed the City Council during its meeting to demand what they’re referring to as “Olympic wages.”
Jovan Houston, who’s worked as a customer service agent at LAX for 7½ years, earns $19.78 per hour. The single mother said in an interview that raising her hourly wage by several dollars would allow her to work fewer side jobs and spend more time with her son.
Houston noted that it’s been nearly a year-and-a-half since Councilmembers Curren Price and Katy Yaroslavsky introduced a motion in April 2023 to raise tourism workers’ wages. But the council had been waiting for an economic analysis report to be issued before deciding whether to move ahead with the proposal.
That report, released last week by the city’s chief legislative analyst, stated that the proposed minimum wage increases would improve equity for workers and be beneficial to the city, county and neighboring jurisdictions.
“The estimated 23,000 workers directly and indirectly impacted by the proposed increases are expected to spend a large portion of their new earnings stimulating the local economy by purchasing goods and other services,” the report stated.
The report noted that city staff received revenue figures and occupancy rates from the Hotel Association of Los Angeles – an organization that has spoken out against the proposed wage increases – after the economic analysis study had been completed.
The chief legislative analyst said that councilmembers would be notified later if the information provided by the hotel association materially changes the findings of the economic analysis.
In the meantime, Houston and others calling for the wage increases said the economic analysis supported their claims that raising the minimum wage is a good thing and that it’s time the City Council took action.
“We waited too long already. A year-and-a-half to tell workers that they’re struggling is ridiculous,” Houston said. “The report says exactly what we’ve been saying.”
The initial motion that Price and Yaroslavsky introduced called for increasing the minimum hourly wage to $25 in 2023, with an additional $1 increase each year until reaching $30 per hour in 2028.
Because the council did not take action in 2023, city staff offered a revised schedule, suggesting that if the council chooses to increase wages, it could raise the minimum wage for the tourism workers to $24.40 within 60 days with an additional $1.40 hourly wage increase each year through July 1, 2028, when the minimum wage would hit $30 per hour.
The California Hotel & Lodging Association, the Hotel Association of Los Angeles and other hotel associations have come out in opposition to the proposal.
In addition, the Alliance for Economic Fairness, a coalition of more than 50 chambers of commerce, business organizations and other stakeholder groups, said in a letter to the city in June that they’re “deeply concerned” that the proposed wage ordinance “is not … reasonable.”
“It would significantly raise the cost of operating hotels and hospitality businesses,” the letter stated. “This would likely cause a significant increase in the price of visiting Los Angeles, leading to fewer visitors each year. Fewer visitors would negatively impact Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenue and decrease other revenue sources, like sales taxes.”
Maria Hernandez, a spokesperson for UNITE HERE Local 11, a union representing hospitality workers, sees it differently. She noted that Mayor Karen Bass and several city councilmembers traveled to France in recent months to observe what Olympic organizers did to make the Paris Games a success.
Hernandez said one thing city officials can do now, rather than wait four years, is to increase tourism workers’ wages to ensure that the 2028 Summer Games are also successful.
“The workers that are going to welcome these tourists, welcome these athletes, are the airport workers. They’re the hotel workers,” Hernandez said. “If the city really wants to be proactive and make sure that these Games are successful, then they will start by listening to the workers that are going to be literally on the ground welcoming folks.”
Tuesday’s “occupation” by the workers outside of City Hall was planned to take place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Organizers said they expected about 100 workers to take part throughout the day.
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