Thousands of workers at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium are threatening to strike due to low pay and the planned presence of ICE officers at the World Cup. This raises the possibility that the large soccer event could commence without staff to serve food and drinks to attendees.
Unite Here Local 11, which represents over 2,000 cooks, dishwashers, concession workers, bartenders, and servers at SoFi, announced on Friday that 96% of its members voted in favor of a strike authorization.
This vote occurred just a week before the stadium is scheduled to host its first World Cup match.
Union members have been operating without a contract since their last agreement with stadium operator Legends Global expired last year. This has given them the authority to strike at any time. They resumed negotiations for a new contract at the start of this year, but in late May, they called for a strike vote, citing slow progress on critical issues like wages, ICE’s involvement at the games, and job erosion due to automation and subcontractors.
Management “raises prices every year for sales, but our wages stay stagnant,” said Mike Burgh, a bargaining committee member and catering bartender at SoFi, to JS. “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,” said Yolanda Fierro, a bargaining committee member and suites runner, 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 accommodate 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, demanding better pay, healthcare coverage, and protections from ICE.
Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images
Besides economic concerns, the constant threat of federal immigration agents in Los Angeles has overshadowed negotiations set to continue on Monday.
When federal agents came to the city last year, hundreds of SoFi workers stayed home, Yolanda Fierro told JS last month. The stadium is near a Home Depot and an El Super grocery store, both common targets for immigration raids. Workers would alert each other to suspicious activities in the parking lot and avoided entering or leaving the stadium alone.
Concerns about being detained by masked federal agents increased 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 urged FIFA and stadium owner Kroenke Sports & Entertainment to ensure that ICE and Border Patrol would not be present at the tournament and warned that they were prepared to strike if their conditions were not met.
On a Monday morning in May, Unite Here Local 11 workers gathered with “KICK ICE OUT!” signs and inflatable soccer balls by the manmade lake just south of the stadium to hold a press conference prior to a bargaining session with their employer, Legends Global.
Kurt Petersen, a co-president of Unite Here Local 11, recounted that just the previous week, 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 stated.
Petersen later mentioned to JS that the member had filed a habeas petition with the assistance of a lawyer funded by the union’s legal defense fund. He noted that about a dozen Local 11 members 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.
“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 recognize that Legends Global lacks the authority to limit ICE activity — yet they view the World Cup as an essential chance to pressure FIFA and the federal government by threatening to withhold their labor during an event from which FIFA expects to gain substantial 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 emphasized 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 indicated 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 see their organizing efforts ahead of the World Cup as preparation for the 2028 Olympics, which are slated to occur in LA. These mega-events create challenging conditions for working-class people residing in the host cities, including heightened policing and skyrocketing housing costs. Already, some members report hours-long 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 insistent 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 across Southern California. During negotiations to resolve 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.”
