BREAKING NEWS: Defend the Wage LA Coalition Demands City Clerk Invalidate Referendum Petition to Overturn the Olympic Wage

LOS ANGELES: The Defend the Wage LA Coalition, which includes UNITE HERE Local 11, SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW), and LAANE, is calling on the City Clerk to throw out the referendum to overturn the Olympic Wage based on allegations of the campaign’s brazen deception of voters, violence, and other gross misconduct.

The referendum campaign, funded by Delta, United, and members of the American Hotel and Lodging Association including Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott, misled countless voters by claiming the petition would increase wages, when it would actually overturn a recently-enacted minimum wage increase. Many volunteers have also accused signature gatherers of violence against canvassers seeking to keep the Olympic Wage intact. The referendum signature gatherers even set up shop in Skid Row, allegedly paying cash to unhoused people to register to vote and sign the referendum petition. Delta is an inaugural founding partner of the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics and official airline of Team USA.

A record of more than 115,000 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 Defend the Wage LA Coalition has mounted a major public campaign to educate the public about the referendum, report misconduct by its circulators, and assist voters who signed the petition based on false representations about its purpose to revoke their signatures. Hundreds of Angelenos have joined in the effort, calling a 24-hour hotline and responding to thousands of emails and text messages, with tens of thousands signing revocation forms.

“The greed of the airlines and hotels was only outdone by their deceit and desperation. The City Clerk should invalidate the petition,” said Kurt Petersen co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11 and David Huerta president of SEIU-USWW. “They would rather spend millions of dollars deceiving voters than pay workers a living wage and quality healthcare, but we are proving once again that working class solidarity is more powerful than money.”

“When we spoke to our community, they understood us and saw through what the industry was trying to do. Housing affordability is out of reach for so many working families across the region, and their support means the world,” said Maria Rubio, worker at Flying Food Group, an airline catering company that prepares and packages meals for international flights out of LAX.

“Corporations’ attempts to deceive Angelenos into signing the CEOs petition didn’t work because we mobilized, organized, and educated our communities on what was at stake: living wages and healthcare for essential workers. In the end, no matter how many underhanded tactics corporations try to use, we, the essential workers that make LAX and the region’s economy run, will win,” said Jovan Houston, LAX customer service agent and SEIU-USWW executive board member.

“Our coalition, which fought alongside tourism workers for over two years at City Hall, has only grown since we heard that corporations were trying to claw back workers’ hard-won wages and health care,” said Jessica Durrum, Policy Director at LAANE. “It’s been remarkable and inspiring to see so many Angelenos heed the call by volunteering, making calls, and helping to spread the word, all to defend their neighbors’ access to health care and decent wages. We’re hopeful that the City Clerk will do the right thing and invalidate the petition.”

The outrageous activity of signature gatherers has engendered a flurry of complaints. Most recently, this Thursday, 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 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.  This mountain of evidence demonstrates why the petition should be rejected.

Earlier this week, UNITE HERE Local 11 submitted a complaint to California Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower alleging that the companies collecting signatures for the referendum may have engaged in labor trafficking in violation of  California law by inducing some signature gatherers to come to work in Los Angeles from other states by falsely claiming the petition was to increase the minimum wage.

Earlier in June, Local 11 filed a complaint with City Attorney Feldstein Soto and other agencies alleging that paid signature gatherers for the petition have obtained signatures by falsely claiming that the petition would increase workers’ wages. It also alleged that referendum signature-gatherers have repeatedly engaged in violent or threatening behavior. In one case, a witness alleges that he was violently assaulted and punched in the face by a referendum petition circulator.

As a result, Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto Martinez introduced a motion to call on the Los Angeles Police Department and the City Attorney to investigate the claims, which was subsequently passed by the Economic Development and Jobs Committee.

In addition, over thirty elected officials, including State Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, Senators Maria Elena Durazo and Lola Smallwood Cuevas, Assembly Majority Whip Mark Gonzalez, and Assemblymembers Isaac G. Bryan, Tina McKinnor, Mike Gipson and Avelino Valencia sent a letter and demanded that the companies “stop funding this distortion of the democratic process in Los Angeles.”

# # #

The Defend The Wage LA coalition is composed of  UNITE HERE Local 11, SEIU-USWW, and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE).

PRESS RELEASE: Hospitality Union Files Initiative Petitions to Raise LA Minimum Wage to $30/hour for All Workers and Require Voter Approval of Hotel and Event Center Subsidies

Los Angeles, California. Representatives of the hotel workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 11, submitted paperwork late Monday with the Los Angeles City Clerk to file two voter initiatives.

The first initiative would boost the citywide minimum wage to $25.00 an hour initially and raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour on July 1, 2028, when the Olympics and Paralympic Games are scheduled to start in Los Angeles.

Last month, the City Council passed an ordinance with similar minimum wage increases for tourism workers, dubbed the Olympic Wage.  Major corporations, including United Airlines, Delta Airlines, and hotel chains launched a costly campaign to overturn the law, arguing that all workers—not only tourism workers—should get wage increases. The new initiative proposes to extend the wage increases to workers in all industries across the city.

The second initiative would require voter approval for hotel and event center development projects in which the City grants subsidies, such as tax rebates or below-market prices for city-owned land, to developers.  It would also require voter approval for major hotel developments involving 80 or more guest rooms or event center developments adding more than 50,000 square feet or 1,000 seats and require that the City Council make findings that the developments are compatible with and beneficial to the local community.

In addition, the union and its allies have launched massive field efforts to “Defend The Wage LA” and inform the public of misleading signature-gathering efforts in the campaign led by the tourism industry to overturn the Olympic Wage. A complaint filed last week alleges that paid signature-gatherers for a petition funded by Delta Airlines, United Airlines, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt have falsely claimed that the petition would increase workers’ wages when the referendum actually seeks to overturn the recently passed tourism minimum wage law. The complaint was filed with the offices of the California Attorney General, Los Angeles District Attorney and Los Angeles City Attorney by the hotel workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 11.

“Tourism corporations often get massive subsidies from taxpayers.  But we question whether big companies that find tens of millions to pay their CEOs each year and are now spending millions more to overturn a minimum wage hike for their lowest-paid workers really need these subsidies.  At the very least, voters should get a say on whether their tax dollars should be handed over to these corporations,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11.

Petersen added: “Since the initiative advances the position proclaimed by these big tourism companies like United, Delta, and hotel owners that all workers need an increase, we expect them to promptly get on board and endorse the new minimum wage initiative.”

DEFEND THE WAGE PRESS CONFERENCE

Don’t let the airport and hotels CEOs’ deceptive ballot initiative take money out of the pockets of hard-working LA families! If someone approaches you to sign a ballot measure this month, DON’T SIGN. Instead, report their location at defendthewage.la or by calling (909) 326-0042. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

BREAKING NEWS: Politically Powerful UNITE HERE Local 11 Passes Highest Wage in the Nation for Los Angeles Tourism Workers, $30 by 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games

Los Angeles: UNITE HERE Local 11 which represents over 32,000 cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, airport workers across Southern California and Arizona led the way for the Los Angeles City Council to raise the wage for tourism workers ahead of the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games.

“This wage increase is going to change the life of my daughter and I. As a single mother, I will no longer be forced to choose between paying the bills or buying her healthy food and saving for college. This Olympic and Paralympic wage will be good for working families like mine, the city and our overall economy,” said Sonia Ceron, dishwasher at Flying Food Group and airline catering company that prepares and packages meals for international flights for airlines like Japan Air, Singapore, Qantas and more.

The new law, dubbed the Olympic and Paralympic Wage, is the highest minimum wage in the United States. It will raise the wage of workers in airports and hotels in the city of Los Angeles to $30 by the 2028 Olympic and Paralympics. Mayor Bass is expected to sign the law in the coming weeks, and go into effect July 1st.

“Tourism workers have once again made history by winning the highest minimum wage in the nation! The Olympic and Paralympic Wage is the first step to ensure these mega events benefit hard working families and not just bosses and billionaires,” said Kurt Petersen co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11.

This is not the first time UNITE HERE Local 11 has led the way in passing historically strong living wage  laws for tourism workers. In 2016 they increased wages for hotel workers in Santa Monica, 2021 in West Hollywood, in 2022 in the City of Glendale and in 2024 voters in Long Beach passed a similar wage increase.

While 10,000 hotel workers won historic wage increases in the largest hotel strike in U.S. history led by UNITE HERE Local 11 in 2023 and 2024, thousands more in airports and hotels will benefit from the City of Los Angeles passing an Olympic Wage by modernizing the Living Wage Ordinance to raise hourly wages to $30/hour by 2028 and improve access to quality healthcare.  UNITE HERE Local 11’s hotel, airport and stadium contracts are set to expire in 2028, months before the Olympics and Paralympics.

Workers were joined throughout their over two year fight by LAANE, CLUE and many other community organizations as they repeatedly made their way to Council to demand a wage that would support working families across the Los Angeles region.

CITY ON THE EDGE

Airport Workers Called on CEOs of North American Commercial Airport Governing Bodies to Help Solve LA’s Housing Crisis

Hundreds Rally Outside Invitation-Only Forum at Five-Star Santa Monica Beachfront Hotel

Santa Monica, Calif. Yesterday, a group of corporate airport executives convened an invitation-only forum at a five-star beachfront hotel while hundreds of airport industry cashiers, cooks, servers and bartenders marched outside, calling on hospitality industry leaders to help solve the city’s escalating housing crisis by supporting an increase to the minimum wage to allow workers to afford rent where they work.

Inspired by the more than 1,000 hotel workers and allies who rallied outside the American Lodging Investment Summit’s annual gathering held downtown two weeks ago, the rallying Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) employees, accompanied by many hotel workers, addressed attendees of the Airports Council International-North America’s 2023 CEO Forum. The event offered “an opportunity to help set the airport industry agenda for 2023” and featured “executive-level discussions on the North American and global state of the industry,” according to its Web site.

Carrying signs that read “Affordable Housing Now!,” “Rent Is Too Damn High!” and “Raise the Minimum Wage,” the airport and hospitality workers pointed to LAX’s current minimum wage of $18.04 an hour as a contributing factor in their—and in other working Angelenos’—inability to afford housing in Los Angeles.

“Although I welcome guests into our beautiful city every day, I can’t afford to live in LA,” said Eleanor Ramos, who’s worked as a bartender at LAX for the last 26 years.  “After my apartment building was bought up, my rent went from $925 a month to $1,395 a month overnight. I am barely hanging on to my housing. I’ve seen how many senior citizens have been left homeless and I worry that that will be me someday.”

The current airport minimum wage of $18.04 an hour would require an airport worker to labor 17 hours a day to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles.

“Today, it’s clear that there are two perspectives in the tourism industry,” UNITE HERE Local 11 Co-President Kurt Petersen said. “One of them is in that gathering of airport CEOs inside that hotel, where the bosses are celebrating their historic profits since the start of the pandemic, because airports and hotels are full once again. The other perspective is here, among us. We are not paid enough, and we can’t afford rent. More and more of us are forced to move to cities and towns like California City, Apple Valley and Lancaster because we can’t afford rent here in Los Angeles. That’s an insult and we must change this situation.”

Closing out the evening, and as a nod to the hotel hosting the CEO forum, hotel seamstress and Gardena resident Carmen de Castro spoke of not being able to afford rent in Santa Monica, where her employer is located; of long commute times to and from work; and of an uncertain future.

“It’s not fair that after 18 years of working for this hotel, we can’t count on a secure and adequate retirement,” de Castro said. “It’s not fair that we can’t count on a fair wage to be able to afford rent in the city where we work. That’s why I’m here today, to tell those airport bosses gathered inside that luxury hotel that we demand an increase to the minimum wage, but above all we demand to be treated with dignity and respect!”