By: Grecia Lopez-Reyes, Campaign Director with Long Beach for a Just Economy, and Gabriel Perez, Community Organizer with Long Beach for a Just Economy.
In 2012, Long Beach voters approved Measure N, which aimed to ensure a living wage for the city’s hospitality workers by mandating an industry-wide raise tied to inflation. Now, more than a decade later, those wages have once again fallen behind the rapidly rising cost of living, even as hotels and convention centers have become more profitable than ever.
To combat this, the Long Beach City Council has placed a measure on the March 2024 ballot that would mandate a city-wide wage increase for workers at hotels with 100 rooms or more. If approved, this ballot initiative would raise hospitality workers’ wages from $17.50 to $23 an hour, with further, gradual increases to $29.50 by 2028. By putting this initiative to a vote, the city council is doing what it can to show up for workers in Long Beach. It’s our turn to do the same by making sure it passes.
Since the early 1980s, Long Beach has invested over $2 billion into the downtown area in an effort to reinvent itself as an attractive tourist destination. This initiative achieved its stated goal: the host of hotels, shops, restaurants, and attractions in Long Beach’s entertainment district projected an image of economic vitality. But the working people whose labor made this possible have not shared in the rewards.
Ten years after voters approved Measure N, the story of Long Beach remains a tale of two cities. The tourism industry is performing better than it was before the pandemic, with higher room rates and more revenue than ever. Meanwhile, poverty rates in communities of color are as high as 26%. When it comes to pollution, education, housing insecurity, and even life expectancy, Central, West, and North Long Beach have been consistently excluded from the city’s vision of prosperity.
While wages have remained stagnant, the cost of living is the highest it’s ever been, with the average rent in Long Beach at over $2,500. The hospitality workers who welcome travelers from around the world and make our tourism industry thrive are being priced out of the very place they’ve made such an idyllic destination.
The Long Beach tourism industry is guaranteed future growth when L.A. County hosts the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. The city’s Elevate 28 plan is betting on this by pouring another $750 million into infrastructure and tourism-related projects. As Long Beach gears up for these major world events, we need to ensure that the workers who make them possible do not continue to be left behind.
Creating a just and equitable economy in Long Beach will require creative solutions to ever-evolving problems. But we know that any viable path forward will begin with workers. Hospitality workers, 86% of whom are people of color, need wages that are fair and competitive, and that can support their families.
Long Beach’s tourism industry has been subsidized for decades by the public, received millions in pandemic relief funds, and is now outperforming tourist destinations throughout the region.
It’s time for it to do right by its own community. If approved, this living wage will set a bold new standard and bring us closer to transforming Long Beach into a city where workers, renters, immigrants, and communities of color enjoy real agency and dignity. It’s up to us to vote yes.
Grecia Lopez-Reyes is the Campaign Director of Long Beach for a Just Economy, which builds strategic community, labor, and faith-based partnerships to address growing inequality and poverty in Long Beach. Gabriel Perez is a community organizer with Long Beach for a Just Economy.
