While a labor union in Los Angeles is insisting on transparency concerning agreements for the 2028 Olympics, another union is resisting similar demands by a national watchdog group.
Unite Here Local 11 has filed a California Public Records Act claim against the City of Los Angeles in LA Superior Court demanding the immediate disclosure of the contractual details of the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics, according to media reports.
Unite Here Local 11 represents hotel and hospitality workers.
“The union cares because they want to know what is in this contract and how will this benefit or hurt their workers,” said Timothy Snowball, an attorney with the Freedom Foundation, an organization that monitors unions nationwide.
“They want to have a say and to have some impact. They are probably thinking that they have been denied a seat at the bargaining table for ultimately whatever agreement the city is going to enter into with the groups putting on the Olympics. Right now, they don't know what that agreement is.”
As previously reported, the Los Angeles 2028 organizing committee said the agreement would undergo a standard public review process, however Unite Here Local 11 has requested a writ of mandate from the Court for immediate release before the contract is signed.
“The city has not released it,” Snowball told the Southern California Record. “So, what they're trying to do is gain access to the agreement seemingly to have some kind of impact on what terms go through because once the agreement has already been entered into, it's going to be too late.”
The Los Angeles 2028 organizing committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Snowball added that the Freedom Foundation is in the same position as Unite Here Local 11 in trying to gain access to union information statewide.
“You've got unions, through their government partners, opposing public access to supposedly publicly available records that a foundation like ours needs in order to inform individuals about their First Amendment rights pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Snowball said. “At the same time, we have United Here Local 11 trying to allege the exact same injury. So, there's a weird conflict in this case.”
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that no public employee in the country can be compelled to pay union dues just to keep their jobs. The Freedom Foundation subsequently launched educational outreach and public interest litigation to stop unions from withdrawing dues payments from worker paychecks.
"The very kind of legal maneuvers that the unions and their government allies wind up using to deny groups and citizens like the Freedom Foundation from accessing public records in the sphere of public sector labor unions are the same tactics that are now being decried by United Here 11 in terms of Los Angeles," Snowball added. "I think that unions are going to use the legal system for their own benefit and there's really no principle involved here."