Essential tourism workers were to receive first raise & improved healthcare from Olympic Wage today
Contacts: Sebastian Silva, 619-754-3350, sebastian.silva@seiu-usww.orgMaria Hernandez, 623-340-8047, mhernandez@unitehere11.org
WHO: Defend the Wage LA coalition comprised of SEIU-USWW, UNITE HERE Local 11 and LAANE, impacted LAX airport and hotel workers and community allies
WHAT: Rally and give public comment inside council chambers to demand City Attorney to invalidate the anti-worker referendum
WHEN: Tuesday July 1st, 2025 from 9AM – 12PM
WHERE: Los Angeles City Hall 200 N. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Los Angeles, CA – Today, dozens of airport and hotel workers will attend and testify at the Los Angeles City Council meeting on the day the Olympic Wage was set to go into effect. The modernized Living Wage Ordinance would gradually raise the wages of airport and hotel workers to $30/hour by 2028 and improve their access to quality healthcare.
The workers will share how the missed wages will affect them and ask the Council to call on the City Clerk to throw out the referendum to overturn the Olympic Wage. Multiple complaints filed with the offices of the City Clerk and City Attorney allege that referendum circulators engaged in brazen deception of voters by claiming the petition would increase wages when it would actually overturn a minimum wage increase, violence, and other gross misconduct.
After tourism workers advocated for the Olympic wage to pass for over two years, the bosses launched a multimillion dollar campaign to overturn the law, with top funding from Delta Airlines, United Airlines and American Hotel and Lodging Association. A hotel industry lobbying group has boasted to its members that delaying implementation for just one year is expected to save the industry more than $114 million,meaning CEOs will have taken this amount of money from workers.
A record of more than 121,000 Angelenos have submitted forms to revoke their signatures on the referendum petition when they learned the petition would actually upend the Olympic Wage. Given the evidence of gross misconduct and revocations, the coalition is calling upon the City Clerk to invalidate the petition altogether.
The outrageous activity of signature gatherers has engendered a flurry of complaints. Last week, UNITE HERE Local 11 submitted extensive evidence to the offices of the City Clerk and the City Attorney to support allegations that circulators for the anti-worker referendum egregiously misrepresented the content and effect of the referendum petition to voters, committed violence or threats of violence against canvassers seeking to educate the public about its actual content, and committed other serious misconduct.
In addition, Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto Martinez’s motion to call on the Los Angeles Police Department and the City Attorney to investigate the claims, will be heard and voted on.
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The Defend The Wage LA coalition is composed of UNITE HERE Local 11, SEIU-USWW, and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE).