Petition aims to increase health care workers’ minimum wage to $25

The Los Angeles City Clerk’s Office Wednesday announced it approved a petition for circulation that seeks to have the city raise the minimum wage for people working at covered health care facilities to $25 per hour.

According to the Los Angeles City Charter, the petition needs 15% of the total votes cast for the most recent mayoral election, which was held in 2017. If the petition receives enough signatures but the City Council does not adopt the ordinance, it will be presented to voters.

The City Clerk said Wednesday that it needs 64,785 registered Los Angeles voters to sign the petition within 120 days of the completed petition’s filing. The petition must also be filed within two years of its approval.

The proposed ordinance would change the minimum wage for clinicians, nurses, aides, technicians, maintenance workers, janitorial and housekeeping staff, groundskeepers, food service workers, pharmacists, clerical workers and more employees working at health care facilities.

The ordinance would also include having the minimum wage adjusted annually to account for increases in the cost of living and would also prohibit employers from funding the wage increase by laying off workers or reducing benefits or hours.

People who work for health care facilities in Los Angeles do not currently have their own minimum wage law and are included under the city’s general minimum wage of $15, which will increase to $16.04 on July 1. Los Angeles’ minimum pay rate is based on the region’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers in the LA metropolitan area.