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as Los Angeles Accelerate in 2028 Olympic GamesLocal unions drew inspiration from a strike by hotel workers held the day before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
this French Staff wave signs at five-star hotel International Olympic Committee Stay, threaten “Don’t hold the Olympics!” if their demands are not met. A series of union strikes surrounding the Olympics resulted in higher wages and better retirement benefits.
Los Angeles labor leaders representing tens of thousands of workers Southern California The hope is that a similar strategy will be adopted as the city prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said his union has signed more than 100 contracts covering about 25,000 workers at hotels, airports, stadiums and convention centers, with the contracts expiring in January 2028, just months before the opening ceremony. The idea is to maximize bargaining power.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents workers in the health care, grocery and packaging industries, and Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents more than 100,000 county employees, also plan to take advantage of contracts set to expire in the first half of 2028.
“We’re going to have a… force of working people who will do whatever it takes, including going on strike during the 2028 Olympics,” Peterson said. “Without workers, the Olympics can’t happen.”
A coalition of labor groups, community organizations and religious institutions is pushing the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, known as LA28, and the city to pay for the construction of 50,000 housing units, pass a moratorium on short-term rentals such as Airbnb, and protect immigrant workers.
University of the Pacific professor Jules Boykoff, who has studied worker gains in past Olympics, called the Games a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for organized labor.
“These large sporting events are another social moment that helps us see more clearly that the people who have been working there are actually essential workers,” Boykoff said.
He cited the victories of traffic workers and garbage collectors ahead of the Paris Olympics as examples.
Who benefits from the Olympics
Robert Bowman, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross who has studied data from several Olympics, said most of the economic benefits associated with the games are short-lived.
Bowman said the tourism and hospitality industries get a boost during this period, while all other industries tend to suffer from widespread disruption in host cities.
But the Olympics remain a powerful bargaining chip for workers.
Axel Persson, general secretary of the French CGT rail workers union, told the Real News Network podcast that the organization won a number of concessions ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, such as early retirement with full pensions and double wages for transport workers during the Games.
In Rio de Janeiro, two years before the 2016 Summer Olympics, more than 2,000 venue construction workers went on strike over welfare and working conditions. They used strikes to raise wages and increase workers’ lunch stamps.
City approves $30 an hour minimum wage for hotel workers
In Los Angeles, labor groups have been calling for the Games to benefit workers who are critical to the Games’ success.
The city recently approved a $30-an-hour minimum wage for hotel workers with 60 or more rooms through July 2028, an increase that will be phased in over the next few years. The current minimum wage for employees is $22.50.
Business groups say the increase will be a blow to the city’s tourism industry, which has never fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Opponents are still trying to delay the wage increase until after the Summer Olympics.
On the other hand, local unions are gathering signatures for several proposed ballot measures, including one that would penalize companies whose CEOs make more than 100 times the company’s median employee. Another proposal would require public votes on the development of major events and hospitality projects, and a third would extend the $30 minimum wage to all workers.
“We need to make the Olympics and the CEOs who make money from the Olympics pay for the things our cities and citizens need,” Peterson said.
Business groups fight back
The Los Angeles-area chamber of commerce is also using the Olympic fight to target a long-standing source of trouble for the business community — the gross receipts tax. Shortly after the City Council passed a minimum wage for hospitality workers, business leaders introduced a ballot measure to repeal the tax.
The tax, which is levied on a business’s gross receipts before operating costs, generates more than $700 million annually, according to the city clerk’s office.
The money makes up a significant portion of Los Angeles’ general fund and is used to pay for police, firefighters, homeless assistance and other core services.
“Businesses in this city continue to take a hit,” said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Business and Industry Association, one of the groups gathering signatures to repeal the tax.
On the workers side, employees like Thelma Cortez, a chef at airline catering company Flying Food Group, say they are being hit by the cost of living. All of Cortez’s main paycheck now goes toward paying rent for her and her three daughters. She makes ends meet by working overtime or part-time jobs.
When she heard Los Angeles would host the 2028 Olympics, she was excited.
“I thought, ‘Well, there will be more jobs and maybe all the airport and hotel workers can make a little more,'” she said.