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SoFi workers say they want premium pay for the World Cup and other major events and protections from their work being subcontracted. They've threatened to strike.
Workers at SoFi say they're worried that jobs that would typically go to union workers will instead go to subcontractors during the World Cup. It's one reason they're threatening to strike. Bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and servers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have staffed the major events held at the stadium since it opened — from the 2022 Super Bowl to Taylor Swift and Beyoncée concerts.
That includes positions in suites, where fans can pay — and tip — top dollar for private rooms, food and drink. FIFA has hired another entity entirely to run its luxury program for World Cup fans. The company, called On Location, is FIFA's official"hospitality partner.
" Workers with Unite Here say they're worried On Location will bring on its own non-union workers for lucrative positions during the tournament. Spectators in L.A. this summer for the World Cup could pay up to $209,000 for a private suite for just one match, but union workers at SoFi Stadium are worried they'll miss out on the action.
Bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and servers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have staffed the events held at the stadium since it opened, from the 2022 Super Bowl and NFL games every fall to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts. That includes positions in suites, where fans can pay top dollar for private rooms, food and drink. But FIFA has brought in another entity entirely to run its luxury program for World Cup fans.
The company, called On Location, is FIFA's official"hospitality partner," offering those that can afford it exclusive seating, special gifts and meals. Their packages can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. Workers at SoFi say they're worried that FIFA's relationship with On Location means jobs that would typically go to union workers — and the wages and tips that go with them — will instead go to subcontractors without union protections.
It's one reason they're threatening to strike when the World Cup comes to town.
"We have so many wonderful workers who've been here season after season," said Kay Blake, a bartender from Inglewood who works at SoFi Stadium. "I don't see why they would partner with someone else to bring an experience that we can bring ourselves. " Workers also want to be paid a higher rate that reflects the sky-high ticket prices for the eight World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium.
They're asking for double pay for major events including the tournament — an arrangement that the food service workers at Dodger Stadium have for the World Series, according to Unite Here.
"We're trying to ensure that there is no disparity between the profits of the company as opposed to our labor," Blake said. "We don't want to be exploited. "Unite Here Local 11 represents around 2,000 workers at SoFi, and they're currently negotiating a new contract with Legends Global, the company that runs the stadium's bars and food services. Their old contract expired last year.
The union is leveraging its role in the coming World Cup to push for higher wages, especially at mega-events. Its workers also want protections from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, after the agency's head. Unite Here filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, saying ICE's planned presence at the World Cup threatened the union's ability to collectively bargain. But the battle over subcontracting could also lead workers to the picket line.
The union says the use of subcontractors will determine who will benefit from the riches that FIFA brings to Inglewood.
"Subcontracting is supposed to be rare," Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen told LAist. "So in this contract, we're saying no more. It needs to end and especially needs to end at the World Cup because we want those jobs to be good jobs.
"Petersen said the World Cup isn't the only event where jobs have been threatened. He said that union members lost out on more than 100,000 hours of work in 2025 that was instead given to subcontracted workers. Kay Blake, the bartender, offered LAist an example: an external company paying to operate a suite or two for an event at SoFi.
"If you bring in a subcontractor, they're going to want to bring in their people," she said. "Let's say that this subcontractor usually buys one to two suites… We have a group of people called suite attendants, and so now there's one to two suites less from their workload. " Blake said that she and her co-workers are scheduled by seniority, and fewer suites could mean people work fewer hours.
She also said more short-term workers at the stadium for the World Cup could dilute tips for the workers who are at SoFi year-round. A spokesperson for Legends Global declined to comment on ongoing negotiations with Unite Here Local 11. A representative for Hollywood Park, the site of SoFi Stadium owned by Stanley Kroenke, deferred to Legends Global. FIFA also did not respond to emails requesting comment on the ongoing negotiations.
The dispute between SoFi workers and their employer comes as high ticket prices for the World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games face scrutiny and mega-event organizers emphasize luxury experiences for the very wealthy. On Location is also the hospitality partner for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The company supplied the same service in Paris in 2024 — the first time the Olympics had such an official luxury service, "The higher end can run well into the tens of thousands of euros: bespoke multiday all-inclusive packages that might include stays in five-star hotels, meals cooked by Michelin-starred chefs, seamless car service between venues and the best seats at the most in-demand events," a Times reporter described in the summer of 2024. LAist reached out to On Location via email, requesting an interview on the services they provide and their workforce.
The company didn't respond. Isaac Martinez, a cook at SoFi Stadium who lives in Inglewood, said he's still waiting to learn what his schedule will be for the World Cup and he's worried about his hours. Martinez told LAist that since World Cup prices are so high, he and his co-workers should get a slice of the pie.
"The people that are able to afford those tickets and those suites, they're not people like us," Martinez said through an interpreter. "They're not the people that are gonna make the food or make the experience. " The World Cup kicks off in Los Angeles on June 12 with the first U.S. men's match against Paraguay. If there's no resolution to negotiations, attendees could arrive to a picket line.
The SoCal Gas Community Service Office in Porter Ranch. The company said its Angeles Link project would lower the amount of methane gas stored at the Aliso Canyon storage facility above the L.A. neighborhood, where the largest known methane leak in US history from the SoCal Gas facility occurred in 2015. State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A.
Basin, effectively halting the effort.. SoCal Gas had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years to help fund the effort. The commission unanimouslyHydrogen is a clean-burning fuel that experts say is likely a critical piece of the effort the cut planet-heating pollution. But it's expensive and largely untested.
State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A. Basin. Southern California Gas estimates it would cost about $266 million to study and plan the project — called Angeles Link — and asked the state Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover those costs through customer rates.
The company had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years. , saying the company had not proved any direct benefit to customers. The decision effectively halts the project for now, and comes amid a stall in federal funding for hydrogen projects under the Trump administration.
As global pollution levels continue to climb, the commission’s decision also highlights the growing challenge of transitioning to a cleaner energy supply amid rising utility bills and open questions about the safety and true environmental cost of largely untested technology. Hydrogen is a colorless gas that is considered"clean" because it doesn’t involve carbon, which — when burned to create energy — becomes carbon dioxide, a major planet-heating gas.
But it takes energy to produce hydrogen, and most hydrogen these days is created by burning fossil fuels.
“Green” hydrogen is created by using clean energy sources like solar and wind to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. Most experts see green hydrogen as an important clean-burning fuel for hard-to-electrify industries, such as long-haul trucking and gas-fired power generation. The city of Los Angeles, for example, wants. At the same time, extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity and fuel also takes water — a growing problem as climate change drives longer and hotter droughts.
SoCal Gas will now have to turn to shareholders or other sources of funding if the company wants to proceed. The company did not directly answer LAist’s questions about whether it would.
“We continue to believe that hydrogen—including clean renewable hydrogen—can help advance California’s energy and climate goals while supporting the long‑term affordability, security and reliability of energy service for customers,” SoCal Gas spokesperson Brian Haas wrote in an email to LAist. Environmental groups celebrated the vote, while emphasizing they see green hydrogen playing a role in the state’s future.
“Residential customers should not subsidize speculative infrastructure for large industrial users,” said Michael Colvin, director of the California Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement. “We look forward to working with regulators, utilities and large customers to build a credible, cost-effective strategy to cut climate pollution from sectors that are hardest to electrify,” the statement read. Fans take photos beneath a mural depicting L.A.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, created by artist Robert Vargas on the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo. Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles. For those interested in exploring the region’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.
Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles. L.A. has a lot to offer, including its vast and varied portfolio of public art. It’s even been referred to as the mural capital of the world. So if you want to explore some of the city’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.
“LA Rising” at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo celebrates the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, depicting him in his two roles — hitter and pitcher. “Blue Heaven on Earth” is a love letter to the Dodgers, depicting both Shohei Ohtani and the late Fernando Venezuela. California native and Olympian Alysa Liu captured the world’s attention with her figure skating in the Winter Olympics. This mural in Gardena celebrates her win.
“Jazz on the field” is an ode to Wrigley Field and the Dunbar Hotel in South L.A. and depicts jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Etta James, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.When Kendrick Lamar featured Tam’s Burgers in his “Not Like Us” music video, the burger spot in Compton commissioned a mural highlighting the rapper’s unforgettable single. A section of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, designed by muralist Judy Baca, that showcases pivotal moments in Los Angeles History.get bigger.
Along the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley, on Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios, two lifelong friends from Lima, opened Merka Saltao in Culver City in August 2025, with a simple mission: to bring Peruvian food to everyday American diets through a fast-casual format built around lomo saltado — Peru's most iconic dish. Then a viral storm blew up. Peruvian cuisine has long punched below its weight in the U.S. despite being one of the most complex and biodiverse food cultures in the world.
Franco and Barrios are betting that accessibility — not exclusivity — is the key to changing that, offering bowls starting at $13.60 in a neighborhood where Erewhon and Cava are the competition. A lomo saltado burrito on their menu sparked an online backlash from self-described Peruvian purists who accused the owners of"Mexicanizing" their heritage — igniting a broader debate about authenticity, fusion and who gets to define what a cuisine can become.
The controversy, which spilled from Instagram onto Reddit, ultimately drove more customers through the door than any marketing campaign could have. Franco says the restaurant is roughly breaking even and he has his eyes on a second location. For now, he's focused on making Merka Saltao a fixture in Culver City — one burrito, bowl or salad at a time.
The wok-fried chunks of steak, dressed in a soy-and-oyster sauce reduction spiked with vinegar, saturate the rice inside the tortilla, highlighting the sweet heat of ají amarillo mixed with the velvety texture of pinto beans. It's a beautiful confluence of flavors. It is also, depending on who you ask, either a creative act of evolution or a betrayal of Peruvian culinary heritage. The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao wasn't exactly a calculated move.
Lifelong friends Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios — who met in high school in Lima — came to Los Angeles to bring Peruvian food to the masses, first through a ghost kitchen concept they ran from 2021 to 2023. The burrito happened almost by accident: a member of their kitchen team brought in a tortilla one day, someone suggested wrapping the lomo saltado in it, they ate it, and within three days, it was on the menu.
Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, inside their Culver City restaurant. The two lifelong friends from Lima opened the fast-casual brick-and-mortar location for their Peruvian concept in August 2025. The data from the ghost kitchen made the case for keeping it there. Franco and Barrios had launched with around 140 dishes — lomo saltado, ceviche, chicken dishes, the works.
But the numbers kept pointing to the same thing: wherever lomo saltado appeared on the menu, in whatever form, burrito, bowl, salad, it was the winner. The two friends made the leap to brick-and-mortar in August 2025, opening Merka Saltao in downtown Culver City.
It's one of the more competitive dining corridors in L.A. , the kind of block that can support a $16 wellness bowl and a craft beer bar in the same stretch, populated by Amazon employees on lunch breaks, families on weekend outings, and food-literate regulars who will absolutely have opinions about what goes in a burrito. Those opinions arrived faster than Franco expected.
Within the first week of opening, an influencer came in and posted about the restaurant — but instead of showing the full menu, the bowls, the chicha morada, the flexibility of the concept, they showed the burrito. Just the burrito. Franco working the wok at Merka Saltao. The high-heat wok technique at the heart of lomo saltado traces its roots to Chinese immigrants in PeruThe comments turned quickly.
"No! Peruvians don't eat burritos. ¿Qué car—o es eso?
" — roughly,"what the hell is this? " — wrote one commenter. Another said"Burritos? We don't eat burritos in 🇵🇪”.
Franco describes sitting at his computer reading the pile-on, feeling something between anger and devastation.
"There was a moment where I probably even cried," he said,"thinking, I've made a mistake. " But then he looked at the numbers. 30,000 had seen the post…. And half the comments were in his defense. He took the conversation to Reddit, posting to r/FoodLosAngeles asking the community directly: am I wrong for this?
The response was overwhelming — hundreds of comments, almost entirely in his favor, and a surge of new customers walking through the door shortly after. This is Los Angeles, where many of the dishes that define the Southern California diet were born precisely from cultures colliding. Roy Choi built an empire on Korean tacos. Al pastor traces its technique to Lebanese immigrants who brought the vertical spit.
The California roll, invented by Japanese chefs in Los Angeles in the 1960s, introduced an entire country to sushi. None of these dishes destroyed the traditions they borrowed from. If anything, they expanded their audience. And the lomo saltado burrito isn't exactly a novel concept in Southern California to begin with — everyone fromrun by 2025 James Beard Award-nominated chef Daniel Castillo, has featured their own version.
Even Disney's California Adventure got in on it, serving a lomo saltado burrito out of theThe lomo saltado bowl and burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City — two versions of the same dish that sparked an unlikely online debate about Peruvian culinary identity. Franco would also point out that lomo saltado itself — the dish the purists are so eager to protect — is a product of Chinese immigrants bringing the wok and soy sauce to Peru roughly 300 years ago.
"Peruvian is by default fusion," he told me. "So we have all the right to wrap it up in a burrito. " What the online critics were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was defending a dish that was itself once considered inauthentic — and doing so in the name of authenticity.
Since the backlash, Franco says business has been mostly steady — breaking even, which for a concept that requires high volume at a low price point, he considers a good sign. The controversy changed things in ways he didn't expect: people started coming in specifically because of the story, not just the food.
He began putting himself front and center in the brand, regularly making videos on social media about what it's like to run the business, occasionally poking fun at himself and the whole debate. When we visited during the weekday lunch rush, there was a steady line of people waiting to order, many stopping to talk with Franco directly.
In a way, he's answered the authenticity question not with an argument but with a presence — showing up, telling the story, letting the food speak.
"Honoring my food, if that requires pairing lomo saltado with a salad or wrapping it in a tortilla, I have no problem," he said. "I'm not being less authentic. We are evolving in Peru anytime. I have to be authentic on the individual flavor and then be flexible to reach more people to discover our flavors.
"Britney Spears at a movie premiere in 2019. She was charged with misdemeanor DUI on Thursday following her arrest in Ventura County in March. Britney Spears has been charged with a misdemeanor count of driving under the combined influence of alcohol and at least one drug. The criminal complaint does not mention what kind of alcohol or drugs, or how much, she's accused of being under the influence of on the night of her arrest.
Spears was arrested March 4 after California Highway Patrol pulled her over for speeding and driving erratically in her black BMW on the 101 freeway near her home. According to CHP, she appeared to be impaired, took field sobriety tests and was arrested on suspicion of DUI. She was taken to Ventura County jail and released on bail the next morning. About a month after her arrest, Spears' representatives say the singer checked herself into a substance abuse treatment program.
Spears is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, although prosecutors say because it's a misdemeanor charge she won't have to appear in court in person. The Associated Press reports Spears will be offered what's called a"wet reckless" when she appears. It would allow her to plead guilty and get a year of probation, credit for any time served, a required DUI class and some fines and fees.
It's a common offer for defendants who demonstrate that they want to get help and address their problems.
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