Los Angeles should hike hotel and airport workers’ pay, report says
A proposal by City Council members to raise the minimum wages of workers at large hotels and Los Angeles International Airport in the run-up to the 2028 Summer Olympics has received a boost from a new city report.
The report, released Thursday by the city’s chief legislative analyst, Sharon Tso, concludes that the proposed gradual pay increase to $30 an hour by the time L.A. hosts the Olympic Games would improve pay inequity issues and help the regional economy. An outside consultant, Berkeley Economic Advising and Research, conducted the study.
Unions representing tourism and hospitality workers seized on the findings to renew their push for pay hikes as the city prepares for the Olympics.
“This report confirms what we’ve been saying for years: essential airport workers like my coworkers and me need and deserve to be paid a true living wage,” said Jovan Houston, an LAX customer service agent and SEIU-United Service Workers West executive board member, according to a news release by the coalition last week.
Workers in the city’s tourism industry have for years raised alarms about the cost of living in Los Angeles and, amid concerns the Olympics will drive up housing costs even more, have said increased pay is necessary to keep them from being priced out of the city.
The living wage ordinance was first proposed last year by L.A. City Councilmembers Curren Price and Katy Yaroslavsky, with several other council members supporting the measure. The ordinance would boost the pay of workers at hotels with more than 60 guest rooms. Certain categories of LAX workers, including security officers and janitors, would also be covered.
Industry groups including the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, the Asian American Hotel Owners Assn. and the California Hotel & Lodging Assn., previously voiced opposition to the proposal, arguing hotels would struggle with the added labor costs.
“Los Angeles’ hotel industry provides thousands of good-paying jobs while generating millions of dollars in local taxes and billions of dollars in economic activity for the region — but tourism still has not fully returned to pre-pandemic levels,” said Jackie Filla, president of the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, in an emailed statement Monday.
An estimated 23,000 workers would be covered by the proposed increases, and about two-thirds of them live in the city of L.A., according to the report. Putting more money in the pockets of those residents would benefit the city’s economy as they would have more to spend and generate new jobs, according to the economic analysis.
The proposal originally sought to increase the minimum wage to $25 an hour by 2023, with $1 boosts every year after, to reach $30 by 2028. Given delays in considering the proposal, the report offers an updated timeline, which would see hourly wages jump within months to a minimum of $24.40 and climb each year to reach $30 an hour by July 1, 2028.
Although the majority of those affected by the pay raises would be airport workers, hotel workers’ wages tend to be lower and those employees would therefore receive a bigger boost, according to the report. Airport workers would see average hourly increases of $3.87 and pay for hotel workers would climb on average $6.24, the report finds.
City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez in Los Angeles to introduce an ordinance Tuesday to strengthen protections for fast-food workers.
The report concludes that cost increases will be primarily absorbed by tourists paying higher hotel rates and other increased costs.
“Although these benefits come at increased costs for the affected sectors, they are being sought to address long-standing wage disparities,” the report says. “Importantly, the burden of these cost increases will not predominantly fall on L.A. city residents.”
Tourism Workers Rising, a coalition of several unions including Unite Here Local 11 and other labor organizations, held a rally last summer to push for pay increases. The coalition plans to hold another protest outside L.A. City Hall beginning on Tuesday, where workers and organizers are expected to camp in tents in an effort to pressure the City Council to schedule the proposed living wage ordinance for a vote.
Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martínez, Heather Hutt and Eunisses Hernandez spoke at the rally last summer in favor of an increased wage.
“If this city is going to host the Olympics — a world-class event — we cannot leave our workers having poverty wages,” Soto-Martínez said at the rally. His mother worked at the airport for 25 years.
While the new contracts have added to labor costs, hospitality experts said the strike isn’t expected to have a lasting impact on the region’s hotel industry.
The report notes that the chief legislative analyst’s office received revenue figures and occupancy rates from the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles only after the completion of the study. Analysts will evaluate the information submitted, and if it changes the study’s findings, the new conclusions will be sent to the council, the report says.
Alice Walton, a spokesperson for the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, said the organization at the time declined to share information because hotels were in the process of negotiating collective bargaining agreements with local unions, and shared the requested data later, after contracts were signed.
The report estimates $700 million in new income from wage increases for the city of Los Angeles but does not explain the method for arriving at this figure, she said.
Berkeley Economic Advising and Research, which conducted the study, did not try attempt to consult other tourism groups and third-party reports that could have provided the data sought on the state of tourism in Los Angeles, she said.
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