LA City Council cuts new deal on Olympic wage after business tax revolt

Los Angeles’ bitter minimum wage fight hit a breaking point Tuesday as the City Council voted to slow the city’s march toward a minimum wage increase to $30-an-hour.The council approved the revised plan in an 11–4 vote, delaying Los Angeles’ original goal of reaching a $30 hourly wage for hotel and airport workers by the 2028 Olympic Games.The original proposal, backed by labor groups and union organizers, cleared the council in 2025 as part of a larger effort to boost wages ahead of the Olympics.Under the revised schedule approved Tuesday, hotel and airport workers will see wages gradually increase to $25 an hour in 2026, $26.50 in 2027, $28.50 in 2028, and finally $30 an hour in 2029, with annual increases continuing afterward.The city’s broader minimum wage is scheduled to rise to $18.42 an hour this July.The revised agreement emerged after months of mounting tensions between labor organizations and business leaders, who argued they had little input during negotiations surrounding the original proposal.Opponents — major airlines, hotel operators and business organizations — gathered enough signatures to force a business tax repeal measure onto the November ballot.Officials warned that if voters approved the repeal measure, Los Angeles could lose roughly $860 million annually by eliminating one of the city’s largest revenue sources.Chief Administrative Officer Matt Szabo warned the repeal would create an “unprecedented fiscal vacuum” and force “austerity measures far more severe than those seen during the Great Recession or during the COVID-19 pandemic.”Szabo went even further, warning that thousands of layoffs, a hard hiring freeze, and major cuts to city services would become unavoidable if voters ultimately approved the repeal measure.The move was designed to bring City Hall back to the negotiating table and slow the wage increase timeline.“We tried to negotiate beforehand, tried to work with councilmembers, tried to work with labor,�...