The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to raise the minimum wage for more than 23,000 tourism workers, handing a major victory to member unions that have struggled to keep up with rising food, rent and other expenses.
In a 12-3 vote, council members ordered City Atty. Hydee Feldstein-Soto to write statutory language that would require those wages to reach a minimum of $30 an hour by July 2028, just as the city hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games.
In a meeting that lasted more than five hours, council members touted the economic benefits of higher tourism income, saying it would make workers spend more money across the region — and, as a result, spur the creation of thousands of new jobs.
“If we support low-wage workers, they can contribute to our economy and strengthen the city,” said Council member Ysabel Jurado, who took office Monday and represents part of the Eastside.
Councilman John Lee, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley, voted against the proposal, warning his colleagues that they were about to take an ax to the local economy. Council members Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez also voted no, saying they feared hotels and other businesses would downsize, cut staff or turn to automation.
“My hope is that we do not create the highest paid unemployed workers in the country,” said Rodriguez.
The campaign for the so-called Olympic wage was led by Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel and restaurant workers, and United Service Workers West, a local of the Service Employees International Union whose members work at Los Angeles International Airport. Both organizations have held rallies, led marches and, this week, organized a three-day hunger strike by tourism workers outside City Hall.
Jovan Houston, a customer service agent at LAX who participated in the protest, said he was “very happy” with the vote. Houston, 42, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and believes the pay package could help reduce medical costs.
“I'm glad they finally sobered up,” he said.
Under the proposal, the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers would increase by $2.50 a year, starting at $22.50 in July and going to $25 in July 2026, $27.50 in July 2027 and $30 in July 2028.
At hotels, housekeepers, desk clerks and other workers will see a 48% raise in 3½ years, compared to the $20.32 an hour currently set by the city's hotel minimum wage. They will also receive a new $8.35 hourly wage to cover health care.
That increase will apply to employees of hotels with at least 60 rooms.
Skycaps, cabin cleaners and many other workers at Los Angeles International Airport will see their minimum wage increase by nearly 56% by July 2028, compared to the hourly rate currently required by the city's living wage law. The current minimum wage at LAX is $19.28 an hour.
Those workers also will see their health care pay jump to $8.35 an hour, up from $5.95.
Throughout the meeting, hotel and airport workers described their struggle to pay for childcare, accommodation and food. Some were crying and urging the council members to approve the salary increase.
Lorena Mendez, who is employed by LSG Sky Chefs, said housing costs have risen so quickly that she and her three daughters moved from Inglewood to Bakersfield. Mendez, 55, said he now spends several nights each week sleeping on his sister's couch in Lennox or his mother's home in Hawthorne to avoid the punishing commute.
“We don't live. We are surviving, and that is not right,” he said.
Business leaders say the wage hike — coupled with new or increased health care fees — will hurt downtown hotels and LAX shoppers. Some hoteliers say they are rethinking their participation in room deals needed for the Olympic Games, while others say they are looking to close their restaurant operations.
The Lightstone Group, which owns the 727-room Moxy + AC Hotel near the city's Convention Center, said the wage proposal could lead to the closure of Level 8, the hotel's eighth-floor restaurant complex.
Level 8 is already struggling to pay the $20.32 an hour required as part of the city's hotel minimum wage law, said Mitchell Hochberg, Lightstone's president, in an Oct. 31 letter to Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson.
The city's minimum wage is $17.28 an hour.
“We are already fighting this battle for $3 less wages than our non-hotelier peers and we are suffering the consequences,” Hochberg wrote. “It is impossible for us to remain competitive while incurring high operating costs.”
Mark Davis, president and chief executive officer of Sun Hill Properties, said the wage proposal would “almost kill” his company's plans to expand the Hilton Universal City Hotel. Such a move, he said, would deprive the city of about 1,000 planned construction jobs and 200 “permanent, good-paying jobs.”
David Roland-Holst, a Berkeley-based economist hired by the city to evaluate the proposal, largely dismissed the dire warnings.
Appearing before the council, he said he expects hotels to meet the increased labor costs by increasing prices by an average of 6%. While some job losses will occur, the wage increase will ultimately serve as a “powerful economic growth tool,” spurring the creation of 6,000 jobs in LA by 2028, he said.
“We don't see any concrete evidence of mass layoffs due to low wages anywhere in California,” Roland-Holst said.
Even if the council had rejected the proposal, the minimum wage for LAX and hotel workers would have continued to increase every year. That increase would have been in line with the consumer price, according to city policy analysts.
The proposal is expected to increase the wages of more than 40% of airport workers and more than 60% of hotel workers in LA, according to a study prepared by the city.
Economics professor Robert Baumann at the College of the Holy Cross, who studies the effects of the Olympics on cities, said hotel and airport workers in LA are in a good position to demand higher wages. With the city hosting a major event like the Olympics, “it has a different amount of success right now,” he said.
“The time has come to raise wages,” he said.
LA could still see labor tensions ahead of the 2028 Olympics, even with tourism's higher minimum wage. That's because a number of hotel staff contracts are set to expire in January 2028, about half a year before the Games.
As part of their decision on Wednesday, council members called for an annual review of higher wages in jobs, hotel development and other areas affecting the tourism industry. They also voted to seek a report next year on a separate policy strategy for businesses that lease space in hotels, including restaurants, shops and resorts.
Members of the council rejected the initiative to reduce the number of hotels associated with the salary increase. And they pushed back on an effort to reduce the types of hotel workers affected by the wage increase.
Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley, voted for the proposal. However, he said he was disappointed that his colleagues were not interested in addressing some of the concerns about the salary increase.
“I voted yes because to me this is about workers, and it's always been about workers to me,” she said. “But I always wanted to proudly say that we compromised, and that we paid attention to all those involved. Because actually we didn't.”
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