L.A. minimum – Los Angeles City Council voted to temporarily delay a $30 hourly minimum wage for hotel and airport workers, citing a ballot fight over business taxes.
Los Angeles’ political battle over the $30-an-hour minimum wage for hotel and airport workers just shifted into a new phase, with the City Council voting to delay the pay increase by months as a major ballot fight looms.
On Wednesday. the Los Angeles City Council voted 9-6 to give initial approval to an ordinance that would postpone the rollout of the $30 hourly minimum wage until 2030 instead of 2028.. The change would not become final immediately; council leaders said another vote would be required to formally delay implementation.
Marqueece Harris-Dawson. the City Council president who introduced the motion. described the move as a “placeholder. ” saying it is intended to keep negotiations alive between city officials. hotel and airport businesses. and labor unions over the next several days.. Harris-Dawson said the council would revisit the matter on Tuesday. casting the step as a way to slow down a conflict that has already pulled multiple groups into a high-stakes political showdown.
The delay proposal gained momentum after airline and hotel business interests gathered enough signatures to qualify a measure for the Nov.. 3 ballot that would repeal the city’s gross receipts tax.. City officials said the tax repeal. if approved by voters. would remove roughly $740 million from the city’s general fund in the first year alone.. Over five years, the city estimate was that the measure would cost an average of $860 million annually.
According to the report, the council did certify the measure for the ballot. But backers of the gross receipts tax repeal have signaled they may stop campaigning if the council halts or delays the $30-an-hour minimum wage.
Labor groups that have advocated for the higher wage said they believe voters would be unlikely to ever approve eliminating the business tax.. Still. the city’s administrative leadership warned that losing the gross receipts tax would quickly trigger severe consequences for basic government operations.
Matthew Szabo, the city administrative officer, said L.A.. would likely declare a fiscal emergency if the city stood to lose its second-largest revenue stream.. He warned that the outcome would require “thousands of layoffs,” describing that as certain.. Szabo also said the city would be pushed toward austerity measures far harsher than those seen during the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic.
Szabo’s warning extended beyond staffing.. He recommended fiscal planning that included possible reductions to staff if the ballot measure passes. saying layoffs would “debilitate” the city’s homelessness response.. He also warned that the city could be forced to cut some 2. 000 police officers and said Olympics preparations would be thrown into “severe jeopardy.”
In the run-up to the Wednesday vote, labor leaders criticized what they called a strategy of using the ballot measure as leverage. Unite Here Local 11, a hospitality union, labeled the approach in a Monday letter to the city attorney’s office a “corporate shakedown” and an “unethical scheme.”
David Huerta. president of SEIU-United Service Workers West. which represents airport workers. told the meeting that unions had been negotiating in the last 72 hours to reach an agreement. but that talks had not produced results.. He said business groups moved to “hold hostage this city and these workers. ” arguing the leverage dynamic put workers in a difficult position.
Business and industry representatives offered a different view of why the confrontation has intensified.. Rosanna Maietta. president and chief executive of the American Hotel and Lodging Assn.. argued that relief from rising labor costs is needed in an industry still working to recover from pandemic shutdowns.. Maietta described the business tax repeal push as “a turning point. ” saying the business community had refused to stay passive after years of being targeted by policy decisions affecting the industry’s viability.
The vote also marks the latest effort connected to a broader fight over tourism-related wage increases that hospitality and service worker unions have pushed to align with the city’s 2028 Olympics.. Council leaders’ decision to consider delaying the wage increase raised fresh concerns among workers who said the $30-an-hour plan had already been settled.
Hospitality and airport workers packed into the area outside City Hall before the meeting. and many spoke during public comment about surprise and dismay at the possibility that an increase already set in motion could be rolled back.. Debra Lewis. a server who said she has worked at LAX for more than 40 years and whose husband also works at the airport. told council members it would be wrong to make the situation harder for coworkers facing housing instability.
Erick Cruz. an employee at Concord Collective. which operates multiple dining locations at LAX. said his family depends on wage increases already underway under the previously approved timeline.. Cruz appealed directly to the council, saying his daughter is relying on those raises.. Others echoed similar concerns. describing how the changes had helped them pay medical bills. reduce pressure to work extensive overtime. and stabilize their finances.
Not all council members supported the delay.. Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, Nithya Raman, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Curren Price and Katy Yaroslavsky voted against the motion.. Hernandez said approving the placeholder sent a “terrible message” that corporate pressure outweighs workers’ lives. adding that workers should not be pushed deeper into poverty while corporations benefit from the Olympics-focused spotlight.
Supporters of staying the course on wages were not the only ones raising concerns during the discussion.. Maria Cortes. of the Hotel Erwin in Venice Beach. urged council members to recognize the financial realities faced by family-owned hotels.. Cortes said the hotel’s rooftop bar and kitchen face growing competition from nearby restaurants that are not subject to the same increased wage requirements that apply to establishments operating within hotels.
Cortes argued that hotels often operate on thin margins. and that higher labor costs can force difficult choices such as reducing hours. cutting services. or closing restaurant operations entirely.. Nella McOsker. president and chief executive of the Central City Assn.. made a similar point from the perspective of downtown commerce. saying local businesses represented by her organization aren’t seeing the booking and activity levels they would need to absorb steep increases in labor costs.
McOsker said she was seeing signs of contraction in the market. describing “hotels empty” and “hotels closing. ” and arguing that the city needs to balance the challenges tourism faces.. Her remarks reflected the tension at the center of the debate: whether delaying wage hikes will help stabilize the hospitality sector. or whether rolling back promised pay raises undermines workers already strained by rising costs.
The wage and ballot measure clash also follows an earlier attempt to change the wage requirement through the ballot process.. The American Hotel and Lodging Assn.. previously sought to fully repeal the $30-an-hour minimum wage through a ballot measure but failed in September to collect enough signatures to qualify.. That effort included allegations that petition circulators made false or misleading statements while gathering support.
With the council voting to postpone implementation on an initial basis. the next steps will likely determine whether negotiations produce an alternative compromise or whether the fight escalates at the ballot box.. For workers watching from the hallways of City Hall. the stakes are immediate. while for the city’s finances and its major events planning. officials say the outcomes could reshape how Los Angeles manages its budget priorities in the years ahead.
Misryoum
Los Angeles City Council $30 minimum wage hotel workers airport workers gross receipts tax 2028 Olympics ballot initiative
so they just gonna keep pushing it back forever basically
I thought this already passed like a year ago?? my coworker said hotel workers were already getting the raise so now im confused. why are they voting again if it was already done
this is exactly what happens when businesses donate to these council members they just do whatever the hotels want plain and simple. those workers been waiting years for this and now they pushing it to 2030 which is like forever away and by then inflation gonna make 30 dollars feel like nothing anyway. my uncle works at a hotel near LAX been there 11 years and still cant afford rent. this city talks a big game about workers but every single time it comes down to actually paying people they find some reason to delay it. ballot fight or whatever thats just an excuse
wait so does this mean they cancelled the $30 wage completely or just pushed it back because the headline made it sound like they got rid of it entirely. either way LA is so expensive i dont know how anyone survives there on less than that honestly my sister moved there two years ago and shes struggling bad and she has two jobs