About 2,000 hospitality workers at SoFi Stadium began voting Thursday on whether to authorize a strike just days before the World Cup opener at the Inglewood venue. The cooks, dishwashers, concession workers, bartenders and servers are represented by Unite Here Local 11 and have been working without a contract for a year.
The vote comes with the June 12 World Cup opener between the U.S. and Paraguay looming over the stadium, where 70,000 fans are expected and where hundreds of picketing workers could be outside if a strike is approved during the two-day vote. Another round of bargaining was scheduled for Wednesday, and a union spokeswoman said the results could be known as early as Friday night.
That timing is what gives the dispute its bite. The workers are not striking yet. They are deciding whether to create that threat now, a week before one of the biggest soccer events in the country arrives at the venue. The same stadium will also host games for the U.S. national team and Iran, along with related fan events, so any labor disruption would land in front of a global audience.
The standoff has been building around pay, work rules and privacy. The union says it wants substantial increases to more than $30 an hour, while Legends Global’s most recent proposal called for wage freezes for some workers and a 25-cent hourly increase for cooks and dishwashers, according to the union. The workers are also pushing back on subcontracting, automation that could erase jobs, and FIFA’s collection of sensitive private information, including nationality, home addresses, Social Security numbers and fingerprints, for background checks and accreditation.
Kurt Petersen, a union leader, said the bargaining table still matters if the company is willing to move. “We want a fair contract. But it takes two sides,” he said, adding that the union hopes to keep talking after the vote. Legends Global said it remains committed to reaching a fair agreement through good-faith negotiations and said it looks forward to delivering an outstanding hospitality experience for fans at the World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium.
There is another layer to the dispute that could shape what happens next. FIFA will control all 16 stadiums at the tournament for the first time, including venue operations and concessions, while Legends remains responsible for paying the workers. Local 11 says it is refusing to waive California data privacy rights, and the union has joined the ACLU of Southern California and other groups in filing a form over the issue.
For now, the clearest answer is that the pressure is only increasing. If workers approve a strike, the showdown will move from the bargaining room to the gates just as the World Cup begins. If they do not, the union and Legends Global still have a narrow runway to strike a deal before the opener and before the stadium becomes part of a tournament watched far beyond Los Angeles.
