Wage Against the Machine

Alissa, Mike and Godfrey give a full update on how LA City’s budget went from disastrous to just “very bad” — including actions from the council’s budget committee to reduce over 1,600 proposed layoffs to 600. Then, a new minimum wage for tourism workers has hotels threatening to pull their Olympics deals. And LA’s former deputy mayor of public safety pleads guilty to calling in a City Hall bomb threat. We’re producing new LA Podcast episodes every week with your help! Become a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la Los Angeles Times: “LA City Council approves $14-billion budget, scaling back Bass’ public safety plans” LAist’s Frank Stolze on the ongoing union discussions to prevent even more layoffs Madeleine Brand interviews LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell about helicopters on KCRW’s Press Play Sammy Roth’s LA Times column: “Climate change is cooking Los Angeles. Does Karen Bass care?” “This budget is far from ideal, but this is the beginning of a longer process to set our city on a path to long term fiscal solvency and economic sustainability. There are still investments I want to see restored, and we’ll keep pushing for them, especially if our labor partners are willing to negotiate.” A message from Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who served as budget chair LA’s Olympic and Paralympic Wage means that tourism workers in the city will make $22.50/hour by July with an escalator to $30/hour by 2028, plus a healthcare credit starting next year “As LA pushes a $30 minimum wage for hotel workers, eight hotels are withdrawing from the LA28 Olympic room block, citing financial strain,” according to the Daily Breeze. Although, as the story notes, some of the hotels threatening to withdraw made deals with the city to receive a share of room tax revenue as an incentive to build hotels in LA… for the Olympics Mark Beccaria of Hotel Angeleno told KTLA: “Common sense says you cannot raise wages over 30% in less than a year when revenue is flat. If this increase in labor costs passes, we will be forced by the City to consider converting this hotel in the heart of residential Brentwood into a homeless shelter” In 2024, Long Beach passed Measure RW, which raised its tourism minimum wage to the highest in the country at $23/hour Interestingly, Long Beach isn’t seeing a tourism slump and has been outpacing the rest of LA County: Visit Long Beach CEO Steve Goodling told SFGATE that 33,000 hotel rooms were booked in March for conventions alone: “We’re up 9.6% in revenue per available room over last year” Alissa’s story on the Olympic and Paralympic Wage from over a year ago U.S. Attorney’s Office: “Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Agrees to Plead Guilty to Threatening to Bomb LA City Hall Last Year” Brian Williams pleaded guilty to calling in the bomb threat himself. As The New York Times reports: “According to the plea agreement, Mr. Williams, while participating in a virtual morning meeting, used a voice application on his personal cellphone to call his city phone. He then called the Los Angeles Police Department to say that an unknown man had just threatened to bomb City Hall.” Watch Alissa talk transit on the May 21 episode of Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney over at Netflix Rachel will be a guest at The Bitchuation Room live show this Friday, May 30 at the Elysian Theater Produced by Sophie Bridges