Employees of the restaurants inside Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) would have their pay raised to at least $30 an hour by mid-2028 under a bill passed Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council.
Workers at several dozen hotels around the airport will also get the increase.
The restaurant and hotel workers are currently entitled to at least $19.75 and $19.73 an hour, respectively.
The floor will be reset in a series of increases beginning early next year. On Feb. 1, the minimum rises to $22.50 an hour, a 20% increase for restaurant workers. It then climbs to $25 an hour in 2026, $27.50 a year later and $30 in 2028.
That rate would give employees of LAX’s restaurants what is expected to be one of the highest government-mandated hourly wages in the nation.
The schedule for the increases is intended to help the local hospitality industry attract the workers it will need when the City of Angels hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028.
The new rates were approved by the Council in a 12-3 vote.
The proposal was opposed by the Airport Restaurant & Retail Association, a nationwide group representing concessionaires. It blasted the legislation as “a bridge too far,” and noted that the hikes will leave a wage 56% higher than it was four years earlier.
The association has not issued a public comment since Wednesday’s vote.
Proponents say the steep increases mandated by the bill are necessary because the cost of living is so high in the Los Angeles area. They say housing in particular is now too expensive for many workers in the area to afford.
Approval of the pay hike is seen as another major victory for Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The group was the main force behind 2023’s notorious Fast Act and the legislation that ultimately replaced it, AB 1228.
That measure created a body called the Fast Food Council to set the minimum wages going forward of most fast-food workers in the state. It raised the minimum from about $16 to $20 an hour as of April 1, 2024.
The Council consists of four representatives of fast-food workers, four representatives of fast-food employers, and an unaligned ninth member who is seen as the potential tiebreaker in any stalemate between the groups.
The new process was hammered out in unpublicized meetings between the SEIU and trade groups representing the restaurant business, all with the encouragement of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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