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≡ L.A. UNIONS DECLARE WAR ON OLYMPICS ≡
The Unite Here 11 hotel and concession workers union led a Thursday (21st) rally in front of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, with its demands summarized in a message it posted on Instagram:
“The Fair Games Coalition, which is comprised of more than 60 organizations, launch a campaign for a New Deal for our Future to ensure the games benefit working families. Over the next three years, Los Angeles will become the first city to host the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic & Paralympic Games back-to-back, making it the mega-events capital of the world. We are demanding that these mega-events serve our communities and leave a positive legacy. We are calling on LA28 and corporations to negotiate a New Deal for Our Future – or face the possibility of massive protests and strikes on the opening day of the 2028 Olympics.”
During the short program, it was Unite Here 11 Co-President Kurt Peterson who dictated their terms:
“We believe the Games present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our city. A new deal that guarantees union jobs and $30 an hour minimum wage for all workers in Los Angeles.”
It’s the latest chapter in a dramatic, desperate and brutal business vs. labor clash continuing in the City of Los Angeles. The short recap:
● On 27 May 2025, a City of Los Angeles ordinance (188610) urged by Unite Here 11 was signed into law which raises minimum wages for airport and hotel workers beginning on 1 July and escalating to $30.00 per hour on 1 July 2028. It’s known as the “Olympic Wage” program.
● On 27 June 2025, the implementation of the ordinance was suspended, as the Los Angeles City Clerk announced that the LA Alliance for Tourism, Jobs and Progress, a coalition of hospitality-related businesses, had filed more than 140,000 signatures – many more than needed – for a ballot measure to repeal the ordinance. The signatures are now being reviewed for validity, required for the measure to advance to the June 2026 ballot.
● While the tourism alliance was collecting signatures, on 16 July, Unite Here 11 filed and is collecting signatures for two ballot measures of its own: (1) an initiative to mandate a $30 minimum wage for all workers in the City of Los Angeles, and (2) an initiative to require a public vote on any “major development projects” in the city, including hotels which receive City subsidies, or any temporary or permanent event construction of more than 50,000 sq. ft. or 1,000 seats, which would impact some Olympic sites in L.A. proper.
It subsequently filed for two more initiatives on 24 July, raising taxes on companies which pay chief executives “more than 100 times their median-salary employee in the city” and limit their use of city-owned property.
● On 23 July, multiple chambers of commerce within Los Angeles filed an initiative petition to scrap the City of Los Angeles business tax, which generates more than $800 million for the City annually and would be a devastating loss of revenue.
A month later comes the newest rally and the Unite Here 11-led demands, best summarized by National Public Radio affiliate LAist:
“They’re asking the International Olympic Committee and private Olympics organizer LA28 to give $5 billion to build housing in Los Angeles. They’re also demanding a citywide moratorium on Airbnb, and want the International Olympic Committee to end its partnership with the short-term rental giant.”
Peterson’s comment in the LAist story was “If LA28 and their billionaire backers refuse to change course, we will take this fight to the streets and to the Games. When the world’s eyes are on Los Angeles in 2028, we will not hesitate to strike.”
The Los Angeles Times quoted a reply from LA28 Vice President Communications Jacie Prieto Lopez, in a statement that explained the Games “will mean good-paying jobs and real opportunities for working people in Los Angeles, including benefits that reach the neighborhoods and families who keep this city running.
“In collaboration with the City of Los Angeles, we look forward to our partnerships with local unions and remain confident the Games will bring positive economic impact to the region and leave behind a stronger future for working people.”
Observed: The IOC and the LA28 organizers are literally innocent bystanders in all of this, now dragged into the business vs. labor fight at City Hall, with the union attacking events which will give their members more work and overtime pay in 2026 and 2028.
Neither the IOC or organizing committee are likely to get much involved in this, as the competing initiatives and referendum petitions will have to be reviewed and certified by the end of the year. They will then appear on the June 2026 ballot – or not – and the public will vote one way or the other; Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will be up for re-election on the same ballot.
Then the rules of engagement for 2028 will fully be known.
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