The fight for the purpose of strengthening the wages of Los Angeles Tourism Workers in line with the 2028 Olympics has taken a new twist, with the President of the City Council introducing a new movement that can give you lower power.
The controversy apparently rested in September, when a lobbying group’s effort to repeal $30 per hour for Los Angeles hotel and airline workers failed to secure enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
But now, La City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson has introduced a motion that, if approved, will see a long-term increase
Rhonda Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Harris-Dawson, said the Presidential Council “continues to work with local partners,” but did not provide further details when asked for comment Friday.
Hospitality and hospitality unions have strongly criticized the proposal.
“It’s a shameful day in Los Angeles when our elected leaders decided to make a hard-earned payment to some city workers,” the president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor said in a statement Tuesday. “These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, they are there with the people who are supposed to protect them and try to take everything.”
But Rosanna Maietta – President and CEO at the American Hotel and Lodging Assn. The business group is urging the Council to “immediately adopt” the new proposal, he said.
“Hotels are vital to the vitality of Los Angeles, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and generating important tax revenue that pays for essential services such as schools, sanitation, and public safety,” Maietta said in a statement Friday. “This move is a long overdue step in the right direction and has given hoteliers and freelancers some respite in the face of declining demand and rising operating costs.”
The City Council originally voted in May to adopt a series of Minimum Wage Landa for hotel workers and workers at Los Angeles International Airport, following a two-year campaign by labor organizers.
The law was removed during the next opposition voting campaign, but it recently went into effect, and it has just continued that workers saw the first increase in a series of wage increases designed to increase their minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2028.
The new proposal positions Harris-Dawson as offering an annual minimum wage increase, eventually increasing workers’ wages to $30 two years later, by 2030.
Harris-Dawson sponsored the original motion and helped VOTE it to the vote. His spokesman, did not specify why he now supports changing the timeline.
However, the move comes after a coalition of airline and hotel businesses filed ballot papers to repeal the city’s business tax, move police officers to the city in a successful year, pay for the city’s police, firefighters and other services.
The business-based index is allowed to circulate signatures, and is sponsored by several airlines and the American Hotel and Accommodation Assn.
David Huerta, President of Seiu-United Service Workerter in the west, which represents airline workers, said the time to move, during the holidays, was ‘very cheap.’
“Simi is ready to defend the Olympic salary,” the statement said.
This proposal is now two committees in two committees – one dealing with economic development, the other focusing on tourism – for consideration.
Times Staff Writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
