The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve a sweeping package of minimum wage increases for workers in the tourism industry, despite objections from business leaders who warned that the region is already facing a slowdown in international travel.

The proposal, billed by labor leaders as the highest minimum wage in the country, would require hotels with more than 60 rooms, as well as companies doing business at Los Angeles International Airport, to pay their workers $30 per hour by 2028.

Jessica Durrum, a policy director with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a pro-union advocacy group, said business leaders also issued dire warnings about the economy when previous wage increases were approved — only to be proved wrong. Durrum, who is in charge of her group’s Tourism Workers Rising campaign, told the council that a higher wage would only benefit the region.

  • zugzwang@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    15 hours ago

    I agree that taking away the cash compensation of the CEO means very little in terms of increases for the average worker mathematically, but these executives are the ones making the decisions to do things like stock buybacks when their lowest level employees are likely seeking government assistance to make ends meet.

    The cash take-home pay is only a part of their total compensation. It seems like they average about $15 million in equity each year. The disparity between the compensation between the CEO and the common workers is what is troubling.

    The CEO has performance intensives that literally double their base salary based on metrics that are completely dependent on the increased performance of the lower level employees, who could only see that kind of increase in their wildest dreams.