The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve a sweeping package of minimum wage increases for workers in the tourism industry, despite objections from business leaders who warned that the region is already facing a slowdown in international travel.
The proposal, billed by labor leaders as the highest minimum wage in the country, would require hotels with more than 60 rooms, as well as companies doing business at Los Angeles International Airport, to pay their workers $30 per hour by 2028.
That translates to a 48% hike in the minimum wage for hotel employees over three years. Airport workers would see a 56% increase.
On top of that, hotels and airport businesses would be required to provide $8.35 per hour for their workers’ health care by July 2026.
The package of increases was approved on a 12-3 vote, with Councilmembers John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez opposed. Because the tally was not unanimous, a second vote will be required next week.
Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, told her colleagues that the proposal would cause hotels and airport businesses to cut back on staffing, resulting in job losses. The same thing is happening at City Hall, with elected officials considering staff cuts to cover the cost of employee raises, she said.
“We are right now facing 1,600 imminent layoffs because the revenue is just not matching our expenditures,” Rodriguez said. “The same will happen in the private sector.”
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, standing before a crowded of unionized workers after the vote, celebrated their victory.
“It’s been way too long, but finally, today, this building is working for the people, not the corporations,” said Soto-Martínez, a former organizer with the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here Local 11.
Hotel owners, business groups and airport concession companies predicted the wage increases will deal a fresh blow to an industry that never fully recovered from the COVID pandemic. They pointed to the recent drop-off in tourism from Canada and elsewhere that followed President Trump’s trade war and tightening of the U.S. border.
Adam Burke, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, said Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — nations that send a large number of visitors to Los Angeles — have issued formal advisories about visiting the U.S.
“The 2025 outlook is not encouraging,” Burke said.
Several hotel owners have warned that the higher wage will spur them to scale back their restaurant operations. A few flatly stated that hotel companies would steer clear of future investments in the city, which has long served as a global tourism destination.
Jackie Filla, president and chief executive of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, said she believes that hotels will close restaurants or other small businesses on their premises — and in some cases, shut down entirely.
In the short term, she said, some will tear up their “room block” agreements, which set aside rooms for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“I don’t think anybody wants to do this,” Filla said. “Hotels are excited to host guests. They’re excited to be participating in the Olympics. But they can’t go into it losing money.”
Jessica Durrum, a policy director with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a pro-union advocacy group, said business leaders also issued dire warnings about the economy when previous wage increases were approved — only to be proven wrong. Durrum, who is in charge of her group’s Tourism Workers Rising campaign, told the council that a higher wage would only benefit the region.
“People with more money in their pockets — they spend it,” she said.
Wednesday’s vote delivered a huge victory to Unite Here Local 11, a potent political force at City Hall. The union is known for knocking on doors for favored candidates, spending six figures in some cases to get them elected.
Unite Here Local 11 had billed the proposal as an “Olympic wage,” one that would ensure that its members have enough money to keep up with inflation. The union, working with airport workers represented by Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, also said that corporations should not be the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games in 2028.
Workers from both of those unions testified about their struggles to pay for rising household costs, including rent, food and fuel. Some pleaded for better health care, while others spoke about having to work multiple jobs to support their families.
“We need these wages. Please do what’s right,” said Jovan Houston, a customer service agent at LAX. “Do this for workers. Do this for single families. Do this for parents like myself.”
Sonia Ceron, 38, a dishwasher at airline catering company Flying Food Group, said she has a second job cleaning houses in Beverly Hills for about 32 hours a week. Ceron lives in a small studio apartment in Inglewood, which has been difficult for her 12-year-old daughter.
“My daughter, like every kid, wants to have her own room, to be able to call her friends and have her privacy. Right now, that’s impossible,” Ceron said.
L.A.’s political leaders have enacted a number of wage laws over the last few decades. The hotel minimum wage, approved by the council in 2014, currently stands at $20.32 per hour. The minimum wage for private-sector employees at LAX is $25.23 per hour, once the required $5.95 hourly healthcare payment is included.
For nearly everyone else in L.A., the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 cents higher than the state’s.
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