Los Angeles' most formidable hospitality union has switched sides in the mayor's race, endorsing Councilmember Nithya Raman over incumbent Mayor Karen Bass just as the campaign enters its final stretch before the November 3 runoff. UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents hospitality workers at hotels and airports across the region, announced the endorsement even as the vast majority of Los Angeles labor unions continue to back Bass.
The switch is a striking reversal. UNITE HERE Local 11 endorsed Bass alongside SEIU-USWW in the 2022 mayoral race, mobilizing thousands of hospitality workers to help her defeat real estate developer Rick Caruso, according to a 2022 announcement from UNITE HERE Local 11. During the June primaries, the union ran the largest ground operation of any labor group in California, knocking on more than 300,000 doors, according to the Los Angeles Times. That kind of field muscle is now aimed at unseating the mayor the union helped install four years ago.
Kurt Petersen, president of UNITE HERE Local 11, said the endorsement was not a throwaway gesture. He said Raman had stood with the union and its members through many fights, according to the Times, and added that the endorsement meant more than a press release. Petersen said the union believes Raman is the right person to help solve Los Angeles' problems, per the same report.
Short-Term Rentals Split the Union From City Hall
The rupture centers on two fights that have pitted UNITE HERE against City Hall for months. The first is over short-term rentals: Bass proposed legalizing vacation rentals in her 2026 budget and supports expanding the short-term rental market, while UNITE HERE opposes allowing Angelenos to rent out second homes on platforms such as Airbnb. Raman opposed Bass' vacation-rental expansion proposal outright.
The Los Angeles City Council ultimately removed the vacation-rental proposal from Bass' budget, though it did agree to require new hotel projects to undergo a more extensive City Hall approval process. If elected, Raman has said she would enforce existing laws requiring short-term-rental owners to pay taxes to the city, and would also enforce wage-theft laws, per the Times report. Airbnb, for its part, contributed nearly $2 million to an independent expenditure group supporting Bass ahead of the June primary and continues to back her reelection bid.
The Fight Over the 'Olympic Wage'
The second flashpoint is the so-called Olympic Wage — a $30 hourly minimum wage intended for hotel and airport workers ahead of the 2028 Olympics, which the Los Angeles City Council passed in 2025. UNITE HERE had campaigned hard for that wage and pushed the council to pass it, according to the Times.
But in May 2026, the council voted 9-6 to delay the wage's implementation by 18 months, a decision LAist reported adjusted the schedule to raise wages to $25 in 2027, $27.50 in 2028, and $30 in 2030. Hotels, airlines and business groups had argued the wage increase would trigger layoffs and closures of restaurants, hotels and airport concession stands, according to the Times. The council agreed to the delay in exchange for a business coalition withdrawing a proposed gross receipts business tax measure, which could have cost Los Angeles hundreds of millions of dollars annually in revenue — a threat the Los Angeles Times reported would have stripped $740 million from the city budget in its first year alone.
Notably, Raman herself supported delaying the minimum wage increase in the council vote, saying the delay provided greater fiscal certainty for Los Angeles, even as she also supports the $30 hourly wage overall. Bass likewise supports delaying the increase. UNITE HERE also separately withdrew a measure it had qualified in 2022 requiring Los Angeles hotels to lease vacant rooms to homeless people, according to the Times.
Raman's Complicated History With the Union
Raman's ties to UNITE HERE run deeper than policy alignment. She was arrested in 2023 while protesting alongside UNITE HERE workers during contract negotiations, a history that helps explain the union's enthusiasm for her candidacy now.
Raman has collected five union endorsements overall, including the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, which endorsed her in August and plans to provide a $3 million bankroll boost for an independent expenditure group backing her campaign — a shift Hoodline reported signaled early fractures in the city's broader labor coalition. Still, Bass retains the backing of more than 30 union endorsements across the region, including local Teamsters chapters, the L.A. County Federation of Labor, International Longshore and Warehouse Union chapters, and the Police Protective League, which represents Los Angeles police officers and has spent more than $2.5 million against the mayor's opponents.
An Escalating Campaign Fight
The endorsement landed amid an already bruising stretch for the two campaigns. On August 31, one day before UNITE HERE's announcement, Bass' campaign launched a website called NoShowNithya.com claiming Raman missed nearly 3,000 votes during her time on the City Council. The attack echoed a clash between the two at an August 19 debate in Sherman Oaks, where Bass confronted Raman over the missed votes and Raman defended her record by pointing to conflicting regional board duties.
The dust-up follows a primary in which Bass took 34% of the vote to Raman's 29%, sending both candidates into the November runoff. Bass has also kept the support of several of Raman's fellow progressive City Council colleagues — Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martínez all endorsed the mayor over Raman in May, a split Hoodline covered in a piece on how LA's left bloc snubbed Raman, even as Raman remains a high-profile progressive and DSA member.
With UNITE HERE's field operation and the Carpenters union's financial commitment now behind her, Raman heads into the fall with organizational firepower that could offset Bass' broader institutional labor advantage. Whether that translates into votes come November remains an open question for a race that has already been defined by defections, attack websites and a fight over who gets to define affordability in Los Angeles.
