Thousands of workers at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium are threatening to strike, citing insufficient pay and plans for ICE officers to be present at the World Cup — and raising the possibility that the massive soccer tournament could start without workers to sell food and drinks to spectators.
Unite Here Local 11, which represents more than 2,000 cooks, dishwashers, concession workers, bartenders and servers at SoFi, announced Friday that members voted 96% in favor of authorizing a strike.
The vote took place just one week out from when the stadium is set to host its first World Cup match.
Union members have been working without a contract since their previous agreement with stadium operator Legends Global expired last year, giving them the power to strike at any moment. They resumed bargaining over a new contract at the beginning of this year, but called for a strike vote in late May, citing a lack of progress over key issues including wages, ICE’s role at the games, and the erosion of good jobs as a result of automation and subcontractors.
Management “raises prices every year for sales, but our wages stay stagnant,” Mike Burgh, a bargaining committee member and catering bartender at SoFi, told HuffPost. “We’re just asking for a respectful cost adjustment, and they’re playing lowball with us.”
“I’m one of the thousands of workers behind every meal prepared, every drink served, and every guest experience at the World Cup,” bargaining committee member and suites runner Yolanda Fierro said in a statement. “Fans from around the world will come expecting an unforgettable event, and we take pride in making that happen. But no worker should have to fear being separated from their family or worry about dangerous ICE activity while simply doing their job.”
SoFi, the most expensive sports venue in the world, is set to host eight World Cup matches and is expected to seat 70,000 spectators. In Seattle, which is hosting six matches, unionized hotel workers represented by Unite Here Local 8 authorized a separate strike on Friday, pushing for better pay, healthcare coverage and protections from ICE.
Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images
In addition to economic issues, the ever-present threat of federal immigration agents in Los Angeles has loomed over negotiations, which are set to continue on Monday.
When federal agents descended on the city last year, hundreds of SoFi workers stayed home, Fierro told HuffPost last month. The stadium is located near a Home Depot and an El Super grocery store, both of which are frequent sites of immigration raids. Workers alerted one another to suspicious sightings in the parking lot and avoided walking into and out of the stadium alone.
Fears about being snatched up by masked federal agents escalated in February, when then-acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Todd Lyons testified before Congress that ICE would play a “key part” in security at the World Cup. In response, Unite Here Local 11 workers called on FIFA and stadium owner Kroenke Sports & Entertainment to commit that ICE and Border Patrol would have no presence at the tournament and warned that they were prepared to strike if their demands were not met.
On a Monday morning in May, Unite Here Local 11 workers gathered with “KICK ICE OUT!” signs and inflatable soccer balls in front of the manmade lake just south of the stadium to hold a press conference ahead of a bargaining session with their employer, Legends Global.
Kurt Petersen, a co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said that just the week before, one of their members had “walked out of a routine courthouse check-in and into an ICE ambush.”
“His wife begged for freedom because they wanted to take her, too. They put her in an ankle bracelet and let her go. Their 6-year-old and 2-year-old watched their parents terrorized by ICE. All of this for daring to live and work in the city they call home,” Petersen said.
Petersen later told HuffPost that the member had filed a habeas petition with the help of a lawyer paid for through the union’s legal defense fund. He is aware of about a dozen Local 11 members who have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump returned to office, all of whom have been released with the help of attorneys hired through the union’s legal fund, he said.
“FIFA runs a soccer tournament, not Los Angeles … No one gave FIFA the power to decide who is safe and who is hunted.”
– Kurt Petersen, co-president Unite Here Local 11
Workers acknowledge that Legends Global doesn’t have the ability to restrict ICE activity — but they view the World Cup as a critical opportunity to pressure FIFA and the federal government by threatening to withhold their labor during a mega-event from which FIFA stands to reap enormous profits.
FIFA did not respond to a request for comment, but the organization’s president, Gianni Infantino, has previously aligned himself with Trump. Last year, he attended Trump’s inauguration, visited the president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, and awarded Trump FIFA’s inaugural “Peace Prize.”
A DHS spokesperson said in an email that Homeland Security Investigations special agents “will be present at airports and around FIFA 2026 sites to support security operations” and that “their presence is focused on safeguarding the event and supporting public safety, not checking the immigration status of attendees at event venues.”
A recent Washington Post/University of Maryland poll found that 65% of Americans oppose ICE patrolling stadiums during the World Cup.
“FIFA runs a soccer tournament, not Los Angeles,” Petersen said last month. “No one elected Gianni Infantino or Donald Trump to rule Los Angeles. No one gave FIFA the power to decide who is safe and who is hunted, and no one, no one gets to bring ICE into our city,” he continued, as workers behind him began chanting, “SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT IT DOWN!”
Unite Here 11 workers view their organizing efforts ahead of the World Cup as preparation for the 2028 Olympics, which are set to take place in LA. These mega-events create difficult conditions for working-class people who live in the host cities, including increased policing and soaring housing costs. Already, some members report hourslong commutes to their stadium jobs because they cannot afford to live in Los Angeles.
But with strategic planning, mega-events also create an opportunity for leverage. SoFi workers have been adamant that the current contract they are negotiating must expire in early 2028, aligning with major LA unions to create a city-wide strike threat ahead of the Olympics.
“The hotels, the sporting events, we’re all lined up,” Burge said.
In 2023, Unite Here Local 11 launched rolling hotel strikes throughout Southern California. During negotiations to settle the strikes, employers offered an additional $3 per hour if the union agreed to a post-Olympics expiration date, Petersen said.
“We took it to our leadership; they unanimously said no, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Petersen said. “Our members get it.”
