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A coalition of airlines, hotels and concession companies at Los Angeles International Airport filed paperwork on Thursday to force a citywide vote on a new ordinance hiking the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour by 2028.
The LA Alliance’s group known as Tourism, Jobs and Progress wants to persuade voters to abolish the ordinance. But first, the alliance will need to collect around 93,000 signatures within 30 days to qualify the measures of voting in the upcoming election.
Alliance spokesman Phil Singer said the wage increases “threatening the revenues Los Angeles needs,” and that they have established themselves as hosts for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics.
“Small businesses will be forced to close, workers will lose jobs and economic fallout will grow all over the city,” Singer said in an email. “We’re fighting for all of that. We’re the millions of guests who proudly serve the future of the city, the work of maintaining our communities, and the tourism industry every year.”
The new voting measurement campaign comes just two days after Mayor Karen Bass signed the law’s minimum wage law.
Wage ordinances have been heatedly opposed by an arrangement of business organizations in LA, claiming that wages in the tourism industry are too large and will increase quickly. However, they were welcomed by the union representing the staff at the hotel and airport. Employees at the hotel and airport have supported many politicians who supported the measure.
The Alliance’s campaign committee has received a large amount of funds from Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Hotel & Lodging Assun, Singer said. The group’s petition filed with the city’s clerk’s office was signed by five businessmen, including Greg Plummer, the operator of the LAX concession company. Mark Beccaria is a partner at Hotel Angeleno on the West Side of LA. Alec Mesropian, advocacy manager for an organization known as Bizfed.
The alliance is targeting a law that plans to push the hourly minimum wage to $22.50 on July 1 for housekeepers, parking attendees, hotel restaurant workers, and loose Skysups, baggage handlers and concessions employees. The wages will be $25 in 2026 and $27.50 in 2027.
The wage rise is spearheaded by International Union United Services Worker West, a service employee representing local 11, hotel and restaurant workers’ unions, and private sector airport workers.
Here Unite co-chairman Kurt Petersen called the business group’s proposal “shameful” and promised that his union members would “put their toes on the streets” at the alliance’s signature gatherers.
“The greed in the hotel industry is endless,” Petersen said. “It’s rather shameful to have millions of people sign this petition sign rather than paying workers enough to live in Los Angeles, but I’m sure Angelenos will see through their deception and will stand with the workers.”
City laws minimize hotel and airport workers pay higher than those employed in other industries.
The minimum wage for a hotel, 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, including hourly medical costs of $5.95.
For almost everyone else in LA, the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 cents higher than the state. The federal government minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
Airport and hotel minimum wage hike supporters help some of the region’s lowest wage workers cover the increased costs of rent and food, while also giving them easy-to-use incomes locally and boosting the local economy.
Defenders say it undermines efforts by the LA tourism industry to recover from the decline in business caused by the Covid-19 outbreak five years ago. They argue that the ordinance will lead to layoffs, as well as the development of new hotels.
The ordinance requires airport and hotel businesses to provide hourly medical payments, along with the minimum wage, which starts at $7.65 in July and is expected to rise annually. (Hotels will be exempt from that requirement until 2026.)
When health care requirements are included, some businesses will have to pay workers an additional 60% over three years, wage opposition says.
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