LOS ANGELES — After many meetings in recent months, the Los Angeles City Council voted Dec. 11 to increase the minimum wage for more than 23,000 workers in the sizable tourism industry here to $30 an hour by July 2028. These workers at hotels and at the airport, like other workers across the country, are struggling to keep up with rising prices for food, rent and other essentials.
The campaign for the Olympic Wage has been spearheaded by two unions — UNITE HERE Local 11 and Service Employees International Union’s United Service Workers West division. Local 11 represents hotel and restaurant workers, including at concessions at the Los Angeles airport. The SEIU workers also do a variety of jobs at the airport. Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics.
The joint actions by these unions are important examples of labor solidarity. “It’s been a long fight but it’s not over. We need more improvement with health care benefits,” Liliana Hernandez told the Militant. She works in hotel housekeeping and is a member of Local 11.
“When we work together with our co-workers, when you fight, you win. Last year we were on picket lines six days a week,” Hernandez said. “With the circumstances we’re living in now, everything is so expensive. If you don’t fight, nobody is going to do it for you.”
Lorena Mendez, who works at LSG Sky Chefs, had to move out of the city because housing costs have climbed so high. She and her three daughters now live in Bakersfield. She said she sleeps several nights each week at family members’ homes here to avoid the over 100-mile commute each way.
UNITE HERE Local 11 members recently won improved contracts after hard-fought strikes at dozens of hotels. They will expire about six months before the 2028 Olympics.
Both unions have organized rallies and led marches of hundreds of workers at the airport and outside City Council meetings to press for a wage raise. They’ve waited patiently for hours to speak to the council, describing their struggle to pay for child care, housing and meals.
“We have been fighting for this. We’re looking for a positive outcome,” Rheema Sierra, an SEIU member who has worked for 14 years as a wheelchair attendant at the airport, told the Militant as she waited in line before the council voted on the city ordinance.
“I’m glad they came to their senses finally,” Jovan Houston, a Los Angeles airport customer service agent, told the Los Angeles Times.
The minimum hourly wage for hotel and airport workers will go up in increments of $2.50 per year, starting at $22.50 in July 2025 and reaching $30 in July 2028.
Housekeepers, desk clerks and other hotel employees will see a 48% hike over three and a half years, compared with the $20.32 per hour currently set under the city’s hotel minimum wage law. They will also receive a $8.35 per hour payment to cover health care costs, up from $5.95.
Those increases will apply to workers in hotels with at least 60 rooms.
Skycaps, cabin cleaners and many other workers at Los Angeles International Airport will see a nearly 56% increase in their minimum wage by July 2028, which currently is $19.28 per hour.
Bosses at the hotels and companies that organize workers at the airport claimed at the hearings that they can’t afford the wage increases and threatened to scale back operations and eliminate jobs.
“We consider the vote by the City Council to raise the wage a big victory,” Sonia Ceron, a member of UNITE HERE 11 who works at Flying Food Group, told the Militant.
“We have been fighting for more than a year for a contract. On the job we organize delegations of workers to go to the company to negotiate for workers and around conditions of work.”
Deborah Liatos is a restaurant worker at Los Angeles airport and member of UNITE HERE Local 11.