The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday moved to potentially delay a contentious $30 hourly minimum wage for hotel and airport workers, saying the action may be needed to stave off a business-backed ballot initiative to eliminate the city\u2019s gross receipts tax.<\/p>\n
In a 9-6 vote, the council voted initial approval of an ordinance to postpone implementation of the $30 hourly minimum til 2030, instead of 2028. But L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who introduced the motion, called it \u201ca placeholder\u201d that allows negotiations between city officials, hotel and airport businesses and labor unions to continue in the coming days. Another vote would be needed to formally delay implementation. <\/p>\n
Harris-Dawson said the council would revisit the discussion on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to assure every member of this council and every member of the public that the labor movement has come to the table in good faith and has moved a lot. The business community has been at the table form the beginning and moved some,\u201d Harris-Dawson.<\/p>\n
The move came after a coalition of airline and hotel businesses gathered enough signatures to qualify a measure for the Nov. 3 ballot that would repeal the city\u2019s gross receipts tax, which if approved by voters would strip about $740 million from the city\u2019s general fund, which pays for police officers, firefighters and other services, in the first year alone. Over five years it would cost an average of $860 million annually.<\/p>\n
The Council voted to certify the measure for the ballot, but backers of the measure \u2014 including Delta Airlines, United Airlines and hotel trade groups, have indicated they will abandon the campaign if the council halts or delays the $30 hourly minimum. <\/p>\n
Labor groups who have pushed for the $30 minimum wage said it would be unlikely voters would ever approve eliminating the business tax. <\/p>\n
But Matthew Szabo, the city administrative officer said that the consequences of L.A. potentially losing its second largest revenue stream would prompt it to immediately declare a fiscal emergency. <\/p>\n
\u201cThousands of layoffs would be required. That\u2019s not a question, that\u2019s a certainty,\u201d Szabo said at the Wednesday meeting. \u201cThe city would be forced to implement austerity measures far worse than seen during the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Szabo recommended fiscal planning on reductions to staff in the event the measure is approved. He said job cuts that would ensue would then \u201cdebilitate\u201d the city\u2019s homelessness response,, force the city to cut some 2,000 police officers and put its Olympics preparations \u201cin severe jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m recommending and I\u2019m insisting that we take actions now,\u201d Szabo said. \u201cWe need to do that work ahead of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hospitality union Unite Here Local 11 called the leveraging of the business tax repeal measure a \u201ccorporate shakedown\u201d and \u201cunethical scheme\u201d in a Monday letter to the city attorneys office<\/a>. <\/p>\n David Huerta, president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, which represents airport workers said at Wednesday\u2019s meeting that the union had engaged in negotiations in the last 72 hours to reach an agreement, but that they had failed thus far. He said business groups had moved to \u201chold hostage this city and these workers.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosanna Maietta, president and chief executive of the American Hotel and Lodging Assn. however, has said relief from higher labor costs is much-needed in an industry that has struggled to bounce back from pandemic shutdowns<\/a>. <\/p>\n She has described the business tax repeal effort as \u201ca turning point\u201d with the business community having \u201crefused to be passive\u201d after \u201cyears of being targeted by policy decisions that threaten [the] industry\u2019s viability.\u201d<\/p>\n The vote signifies the latest push by the group to slow or halt wage increases for tourism workers in the city, increases that hospitality and service worker unions have pushed for to coincide with the 2028 Olympics.<\/p>\n The American Hotel and Lodging Assn. had previously sought to entirely repeal the<\/a> $30 per hour minimum wage through a ballot measure, but in September failed to secure enough signatures<\/a> to qualify amid allegations that petition circulators made false or misleading <\/a>statements to gather voter support. <\/p>\n Dozens of airport and hotel workers lined up outside of City Hall Wednesday morning to enter the meeting room. Many described during the public comment period shock and dismay at city leaders considering taking back wage increases that were already a done deal.<\/p>\n Debra Lewis, a server who has worked at LAX for more than 40 years and whose husband also works at the airport, said she has co-workers on the brink of homelessness and that the council \u201cshouldn\u2019t make it harder for them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time when gas prices are outrageous…you want to eliminate our raise? Shame on any councilmember that would support this proposal,\u201d Lewis said.<\/p>\n Erick Cruz, an employee at Concord Collective, which operates several dining locations at LAX, said his family depended on the wage increases that were already underway as part of the previously approved timeline. <\/p>\n \u201cPlease do not lower our wages, My daughter is counting on this,\u201d Cruz said. <\/p>\n Others said they had been able to pay off medical bills, feel less pressure to work long overtime hours and overall had gained more firm financial footing in recent months.<\/p>\n Council members Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, Nithya Raman, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Curren Price and Katy Yaroslavsky voted against the motion. <\/p>\n Hernandez said approval of the motion sends a \u201cterrible message that corproate pressure matters more than workers lives\u201d and that workers \u201cshould not be pushed deeper into poverty while corporations profit off the global spotlight\u201d of the Olympics.<\/p>\n Maria Cortes of the Hotel Erwin in Venice Beach, meanwhile, said councilmembers should \u201crecognize the financial realities\u201d family-owned hotels face. She said the hotel\u2019s rooftop bar and kitchen faced growing competition from nearby restaurants that were not subject to the same increased wage requirements as establishments within hotels. Hotels operate on thin margins, she said, and higher labor costs \u201ccan lead to difficult decisions such as reducing hours, cutting services or closing restaurant operations altogether.\u201d <\/p>\n Nella McOsker, president & chief executive of the Central City Association, said downtown businesses represented by her organization were not seeing room bookings and other economic activity they would need to be able to support a steep rise in labor costs.<\/p>\n \u201cI see hotels empty, hotels closing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to balance challenges the tourism industry faces.\u201d<\/p>\n Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday moved to potentially delay a contentious $30 hourly minimum wage for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":794573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[324233,199061,9110,1582,276,2451,94526,24580,157391,2961,224,5337,324232,289,25984,21191,324234,5207,130862,15613],"class_list":{"0":"post-794572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-airport-business","9":"tag-airport-worker","10":"tag-ballot","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-city","14":"tag-first-year","15":"tag-hotel","16":"tag-l-a-council","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-matthew-szabo","21":"tag-measure","22":"tag-minimum-wage","23":"tag-motion","24":"tag-olympics-preparation","25":"tag-president","26":"tag-wage-increase","27":"tag-wednesday"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116569988481366052","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}