Los Angeles, March 2022: Tents of homeless people outside City Hall. (Photo: Elliott Cowand Jr., Shutterstock)
Union Pushing $30 Wage Won’t Pay Their Own Canvassers the ‘Living Wage’ They Demand
Los Angeles is ‘on a path to having the highest-paid unemployed workforce in the country’
By Katy Grimes, June 18, 2025 7:01 am
In a 12-3 vote last month, the Los Angeles City Council approved a minimum wage hike for airport and hotel workers, with the goal of reaching $30 an hour by 2028 – in time for the Los Angeles hosted Olympics, the Globe reported.
Just a little opportunistic? Oh Hell yes. This $30 per hour wage will clearly help facilitate the demise of the Los Angeles tourism industry – and possibly the LA28 Olympics. Behind this destructive move is labor union Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel and airport workers.
When did LA become such a cataclysmic hellhole, and why would anyone want the 2028 Olympics there? This is a march to Marxism, cloaked as social justice.
Following the LA City Council vote, the Center for Union Facts (CUF) ran a full-page ad in the California statewide edition of USA Today calling out the Los Angeles City Council’s decision to move forward with a union-backed $30 minimum wage for hotel and tourism workers, saying the city is “ruining a golden opportunity.”
The ad called out the 11,000 hospitality jobs the city lost last year, saying “this new proposal will kill more jobs and raise costs for visitors.” The city’s industry has faced a perfect storm of natural and man-made disasters, including the recent fires, unrealistic wage and benefit mandates, and disruptive strikes that hinder tourism.
“L.A.’s hospitality industry is already struggling, and this drastic wage increase will only make the situation worse,” said Charlyce Bozzello, communications director for the Center for Union Facts. “The union pushing for this policy – Unite Here Local 11 – is the same union that has disrupted weddings, disturbed countless hotel guests with early morning protests, and even tried to ruin a Taylor Swift concert. Now, it looks like the union’s next target is the L.A. Olympics.”
However, Unite Here Local 11 is pushing the $30 an hour minimum wage, except when it comes to their own canvassers. Local 11 is looking to hire canvassers for their $30 wage proposal. The twist is, they are paying those canvassers $20 an hour, a full $10 an hour under the “living wage” they are trying to require of LA hotels.
Just a little hypocrisy from the labor union?
“This hypocrisy is shameful, but it’s not a surprise coming from Unite Here Local 11, the country’s worst labor union. The union’s harmful stunts, including the notorious homeless hotels ballot idea and the current $30 mandate, harm the region and the workers the union claims to represent,” said Charlyce Bozzello, communications director, Center for Union Facts. “Members would be well-served to ask union leaders for a detailed look at how their dues dollars are being spent.”
The one sane voice on the Los Angeles City Council, Monica Rodriguez, had very practical economic motivation behind her NO vote, as the Globe reported:
“This policy imposes a significant wage and health benefit increase overnight that will inevitably result in higher hotel rates, reduced hours for hotel workers, and job losses–not just in hotels, but across businesses that rely on tourism: restaurants, retail, attractions, and our struggling commercial corridors. Tying the wage increase to the 2028 Olympics may sound appealing, but the reality is that many of those events are happening outside city limits, yet this increase only impacts the City of Los Angeles making our hotels less competitive and undercutting our ability to attract tourists resulting in a loss of TOT, taxes and other economic impacts that the City will lose as we are facing a $1 billion deficit and laying off workers.
“My concern remains that we are on a path to having the highest-paid unemployed workforce in the country, where wages go up, but job opportunities disappear because we failed to think through the economic impact on our small businesses, hotels, and the broader tourism sector.”
For your reading enjoyment, here is a catalog of a number of Unite Here Local 11’s controversies at the Center for Union Facts EyesOn11 page.
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Hyperinflation is coming to California
Especially Los Angeles & San Diego Counties
Marxist Democrats are doing everything they can to destroy the working and middle class in this country. Mandating outrageous wages for unskilled labor is an obvious job killer. Marxist Democrats want everyone poor except the elite.
There is a reason why jobs pay based on skill level needed to perform the job.
Yesterday I heard in passing (part of) an interesting analysis of this L.A. $30 an hour suicidal and marxist minimum wage ridiculousness. As the wage goes up and eventually reaches $30 an hour, those who still have jobs (and jobs WILL be lost, as we’ve seen with this kind of thing) and who are actually getting such wages, will have to pay increased —- or even first-time — TAXES on those wages. What’s more, the new higher wage will likely make them ineligible for the kinds of freebies —- like food stamps, Section 8 housing, Medi-Cal, and other welfare programs —- that previously padded out cost of living and might actually add up to a rather high comparable annual “salary” compared to the average person trying to make ends meet. I remember seeing a (now many years-old) analysis like this that had annual income, with all the freebies and perks, at about $86K. I wonder if this analysis strikes anyone else as a valid and feasible one.
A “living wage” for ME but NOT for thee….
#UnionsSUCK (at least their ORGANIZERS/LEADERS do, for certain…)
Here’s the Cliffs Notes version of this entire article :
“Members would be well-served to ask union leaders for a detailed look at how their dues dollars are being spent.”
Bet the union “leaders” are living in expensive homes and driving expensive cars, while FLEECING their members by promising and promoting job-killing ideas like this one…..
Why not $50 an hour??? Why not $100??? Heck, why not $1,000 an hour???? The more the rank and file make, the more the “leaders” TAKE from them via their dues….
Good observations. Under the guise of helping their membership many unions are indeed f’ing their membership over to maintain their own jobs and inflated lifestyles
The Daily Caller article below may give some additional insight as to how L.A. became a stinking smoldering pit of a hell hole, and so (seemingly) quickly. It’s not a pretty picture and not something we didn’t suspect but it’s not as though Karen Bass was not open to this sort of thing BEFORE becoming mayor. She was a lefty in Congress before that and as we know she is a lefty from way back. And Bass’ current “leadership” style with its commie-anti-American not only “flavor” but full-on “infusion,” riddled with neglect of her job but expectations of fun fun fun and goodies goodies goodies, never mind endless favors to “friends” & etc., explains what we’ve seen since; i.e., the growing commie-membership of the L.A. City Council and its continual stream of very bad ideas that are voted in with great enthusiasm:
“EXCLUSIVE: How Chinese Intel Infiltrated L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ Camp” – Daily Caller, 6/16/25
https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2025/06/16/exclusive-how-chinese-intel-infiltrated-la-mayor-karen-bass-camp/
Gee, I wonder what The Palisades will look like when it’s all said and done under the Karen Bass regime?
Who looked the other way when the downtown L.A. anarchy and chaos happened?
Who was major pissed when the L.A. Chief of Police (who “serves at Mayor Bass’ pleasure,” as they say) went so far and went out on a limb to contradict her ridiculous description and analysis of the worst and most dangerous and ugly parts of the so-called L.A. Riots?
Who got WAAAAY more excited and animated and fierce about Trump’s “interference” during HER riot (it’s HERS, and also Newsom’s) than she ever could ever even IMAGINE getting when the heartbreaking devastating sad sad sad hell-fires blew through L.A. and the region, taking out some of the most wonderful and beautiful parts of LA and its history?
Gee, I don’t know, could it have been L.A. Mayor Karen Bass?
At least we got SOMETHING from the cali commutards-forensic sciences.
Remember how skeeter skeered (Florida slang) they always were about heteronormy, Christian, white, serial killer males?
At least we got that from the commutards….
As a Los Angeles native who moved away 33 years ago, I never thought I’d see Los Angeles move further to the left than San Francisco. Crazytown.