L.A. City Council president moves to delay full Olympic wage boost for tourism workers

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The fight over an effort to boost wages for Los Angeles tourism workers to coincide with the 2028 Olympics has taken a fresh twist, with the City Council president introducing a new motion that critics say would significantly water down the measure.The issue ostensibly had been put to rest in September, when a business group-backed effort to repeal a $30 per hour minimum wage for Los Angeles hotel and airport workers failed to secure enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.But now, L.A.

City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson has introduced a motion that, if approved, would phase the increase in over a longer period of time — delaying the full $30 hourly minimum wage until 2030.Rhonda Mitchell, a spokesperson for Harris-Dawson, said the council president “continues to work with partners around negotiations,” but did not provide other details when asked for comment by The Times on Friday.California The proposal, billed as the highest minimum wage in the U.S., would take the minimum wage for hotels and LAX workers to $30 by 2028.Hospitality and service employee unions sharply criticized the proposal.“It is a shameful day in Los Angeles when our own elected leaders decide to put forth a motion to strip hard-earned wages from some of the city’s lowest-paid workers,” Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement Friday.

“These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away.”But Rosanna Maietta — president and chief executive of the American Hotel and Lodging Assn., which had supported repealing the wage increase — said relief from higher labor costs is much-needed in an industry that has struggled to bounce back from pandemic shutdowns.The business group urges the council to “swiftly adopt” the new ...