SoFi

Nearly 2,000 food and beverage workers at SoFi Stadium voted overwhelmingly Friday to authorize a strike just a week before the venue will stage the first World Cup game on U.S. soil in more than three decades.

Negotiations on a labor contract between Unite Here Local 11, the union representing the cooks, dishwashers, concession workers and bartenders at SoFi and, Legends Global, the stadium’s food-service operator, are expected to continue Monday despite the vote. But Kurt Petersen, the union’s co-president, said if an agreement isn’t reached workers will walk off the job and the 70,000 fans arriving for the June 12 match between the U.S. and Paraguay will be greeted by hundreds of picketers.

Union members have been working without a contract for a year and Petersen said Unite Here is demanding salary increases, protection against subcontracting and job loss through automation, and are protesting the collection of sensitive private information such as nationality and home addresses that FIFA, organizer of the World Cup, said it needs to accreditate workers.

Workers are also demanding the right to walk off the job if federal immigration enforcement enters the stadium and creates a reasonable fear for their safety. Ninety-six percent of the vote was in favor of strike authorization.

Legends Global, the stadium’s food-service operator, responded to the vote with a statement.

“Legends Global has presented progressive wage proposals to Unite Here Local 11 throughout our negotiations and remains confident an agreement is within reach,” it read. “While we expect a contract will be finalized in time, a contingency staffing plan is in place to ensure seamless operations and no disruption to fans. We remain committed to delivering an outstanding hospitality experience at the FIFA World Cup matches.”

That contingency plan would involve hiring replacement workers who would have to undergo the same detailed accreditation procedures demanded by FIFA, plus job training. SoFi Stadium is scheduled to play host to eight World Cup matches, including two of the U.S. team’s three group-stage games. The first of those is on June 12 when the U.S. faces Paraguay in its World Cup opener.

Petersen said the union is looking for “substantial increases” in hourly pay, to more than $30 an hour. Legends’ most recent proposal calls for wage freezes for some workers and a 25-cent hourly increase for cooks and dishwashers, the union said.

But perhaps the biggest sticking point is FIFA’s demand for workers’ sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers and fingerprints, to process background checks. Under California privacy laws, workers have the right to know exactly what personal information their employer collects, how it will be used, and who it will be shared with. Local 11 said its members fears such information, if collected, could be made available to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.

According to Petersen, when workers were originally hired by Legends they submitted the documentation necessary for employment, and under the current collective bargaining agreement the company does not have the right to request it again for FIFA.

FIFA has refused to comment on the contract talks, saying they are “between Legends Global and Unite Here Local 11.” But its insistence on collecting personal information is something Legends cannot address during contract talks, which makes a resolution impossible.

FIFA said it was partnering with the governments of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the three countries in which the 39-day tournament will be played, “to enhance safety and security of all workers, staff, team members, vendors, journalists, volunteers, and spectators by mitigating potential insider threats. … Such name checks do not constitute pre-employment checks.”

All data collected during the name-check process, FIFA said, will be processed “in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws, and will be deleted by FIFA as soon as it is no longer needed for purposes of adjudicating requests for credentialed access to FIFA-controlled spaces.

Making a rib stop on the way to a game and then eating your barbecue inside your car — or, better, on the hood of your car if you don’t want sauce-stained seats — has been a classic move since the days the Lakers used to play at the Forum in Inglewood. Lately, however, it’s getting harder to find old-school L.A. barbecue — the wood-smoked ribs and links and small ends that have long powered this city. Luckily, Inglewood is home to two outposts from the first family of L.A. barbecue: Woody’s (see separate entry), started by the late Woodrow “Woody” Phillips and Phillips Bar-B-Que from Woody’s cousin Foster Phillips, who still inspires younger pitmasters. Where Woody’s has patio seating, Phillips, in traditional barbecue style, is a take-out-only shop with a tightly packed parking lot off Centinela Avenue. It’s the only location that remains after the 2024 closure of Phillips’ Crenshaw spot. Recently, I stopped in for pork ribs so tender the meat easily came free from the bone; small ends, a meaty cut Phillips helped popularize; plus sides of greens and an especially cheesy macaroni and cheese. If you order your rib sauce hot, it may not be as spicy as it was in the old days, but it still has the sweet taste of nostalgia.

Isaac Martinez has been as a cook at SoFi Stadium for four years. He’s worked dozens of NFL games, a Super Bowl, Taylor Swift concerts, Wrestlemania and the college football national championship game, among dozens of other events.

And he’s never been afraid to come to work. Until now.

He’s not alone. With the World Cup kicking off at the Inglewood venue next month, Martinez says he and many of the people who work in food services and other jobs at the stadium won’t feel safe if federal immigration agents are present during the tournament.

“Most of the workers are afraid. They fear for their safety,” Martinez said in Spanish. “This is also about the fans. People come from everywhere, even from Iran. So we’re concerned about their safety.”

So concerned, Unite Here Local 11, the hospitality union that represents Martinez and about 2,000 others who are working at SoFi without a contract, said it may strike ahead of the World Cup if ICE agents aren’t kept away from the stadium.

Last month Unite Here Local 11 filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board charging Legends Hospitality, which operates the premium food, beverage and retail services at SoFi; Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, owner of the stadium; and FIFA, organizer of the World Cup, with creating an unsafe work environment by refusing to restrict the presence of ICE officials at the eight World Cup games to be played in Inglewood.

“We are concerned about the safety of guests and workers,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Local 11. “ICE has become more and more out of control and violent. We saw what happened in the killings in Minnesota. So I don’t think anyone is safe when ICE is around.”

A spokesperson for FIFA, organizer of the World Cup, declined to comment on the record about the union’s complaint and Legends Hospitality, did not immediately respond to repeated requests for comment. The union, meanwhile, joined Friday with faith and labor leaders and members of the Fair Games Coalition to press their point at a May Day rally outside the FIFA host committee offices in downtown Los Angeles.

It’s unclear what role, if any, federal authorities will play at the World Cup but Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, has said his agency will have a “key part” in security at tournament venues. And that ambiguous statement has raised alarms not just with workers but also with human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which issued a World Cup travel advisory for visitors planning on attending the tournament.

Petersen said the union, along with more than 100 human rights groups, has asked FIFA president Gianni Infantino to make a direct request to President Trump for a moratorium on ICE raids in U.S. — especially at World Cup venues — during the 38-day tournament.

“FIFA could tell the Trump administration ‘keep ICE out of the games. We don’t need them to run a soccer tournament,’” Petersen said. “So that is the demand that we’re continuing to insist on. And if we don’t get that, then we’re prepared to do everything up to a strike heading into the World Cup.”

Amnesty International’s concerns are far broader than those of Petersen’s union. The group said it is worried about “the deteriorating human rights situation in the United States” and “the absence of meaningful action and concrete guarantees from FIFA, host cities, or the U.S. government” to address that.

Amy Fischer, director for refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International USA, warned that “there is a real risk for people traveling to these games because of the aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that we’ve seen from this administration.”

“I think there is a high likelihood of some chaos. Because that is what this administration thrives off of and it’s what they love to create,” she added. “At Amnesty we are really hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.”

The travel advisory the group issued claims visitors may be arbitrarily denied entry to the country, detained in “inhumane” conditions or subjected to invasive phone and social media searches. It also cites aggressive immigration surges in cities including Los Angeles that led to accusations of racial profiling and the violent suppression of protests.

“We know at the games there will be immigrant fans, there will be immigrant workers,” Fischer said. “Nobody is safe in that environment with this lawless agency that is consistently violating the law and violating people’s human rights. It could make any game turn into a disaster.”

Anxiety is high among stadium workers, who are concerned about the threat of ICE detainment, regardless of their immigration status.

“We are asking FIFA to take care of this and now allow ICE to be present in the stadium,” Martinez said. “We’ve seen the violence isn’t limited to one particular group. The violence is widespread. People have been killed in Minneapolis, in Chicago even here in Los Angeles.

“We’ve seen everything that’s happened with ICE and that’s where the fear comes from for all of us.”

Karol G is taking her 2025 album, “Tropicoqueta,” worldwide.

After wrapping two bombastic headlining sets at Coachella this year, the Colombian superstar announced a stadium world tour on Instagram Tuesday morning.

The “Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour” will kick off July 24 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. The “Provenza” artist will then head out to Las Vegas on Aug. 7 before making a stop at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Aug. 14. She’ll grace California with one more performance on Aug. 21 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

The 35-year-old singer will wrap up the U.S. leg of her tour with a performance in Dallas on Oct. 15 before commencing the international section of the tour in Monterrey, Mexico, on Nov. 6. This string of shows is scheduled to finish exactly a year after commencing, with a July 24, 2027, set in Milan, Italy.

Karol G was the first Latina to headline Coachella in the desert fest’s 27-year history. She was only the second Latin music artist to get top billing at the event, with Bad Bunny being the first to ever do it with his 2023 headlining performances.

“This is for my Latinos that have been struggling in this country lately,” she told her fans during her history-making performance. “We stand for them. I stand for my Latina community. I am very proud because this brings out the best in us: unity, resilience and a strong spirit. We do this because we want everyone to feel welcome to our culture, so I want everyone to feel proud of where you come from.”

During her Coachella shows, which took place across two weekends in April, she brought out a cavalcade of guest performers — including L.A.’s own Becky G, the Colombian reggaeton revivalist J Balvin and Greg Gonzalez from Cigarettes After Sex.

The “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” artist first teased that she’d be embarking on a tour at the end of her set during the second weekend of Coachella. Text reading “Nos Vamos de Tour” (We’re going on tour) was displayed as she played her final song.