A prominent Long Beach union says it will picket Tuesday ahead of Mayor Rex Richardson’s annual State of the City address at the convention center to alert the public to their gripes over stalled contract negotiations.

In a release Monday, Unite Here Local 11 said that 85% of its represented workers at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center voted to authorize a potential strike over the issue of “subcontracting at their workplaces.”

The announcement comes a week after the Long Beach City Council voted 4-1 to draft an ordinance that, if passed, would raise wages for more than 200 workers — cooks, bartenders and attendants — at the city-owned convention center and the Long Beach Airport.

The raise would bump minimum pay to $23 an hour immediately with $2 and $1.50 yearly pay escalators to $29.50 by 2028. It mirrors the voter-approved Measure RW from last March, which applies the same wage scale to workers at 100-plus room hotels.

But the ordinance would not apply to temporary workers who clock under 960 hours a year, a sticking point in contract negotiations that the union said has also stymied its talks with ASM Global — the private company that the city contracts to manage the center — and provoked its latest action against the city.

Given the nature of its business, the center relies heavily on seasonal or last-minute workers for larger events and those announced under short notice. According to David Ventura with Unite Here Local 11, the center paid for 28,000 hours of subcontracted work in 2023.

Union representatives at the last City Council meeting lambasted the proposal to exempt short-term workers from the pay hikes, saying it encourages managers to bypass direct hires in favor of lower-paid temp workers at a time when the region anticipates welcoming thousands of tourists in the coming years.

“Beyond the Olympics, this region is going to see unprecedented demand,” said Victor Sanchez, executive director with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. “With a Club World Cup, a World Cup, a Gold Cup and NBA All-Star game and a Superbowl — (and) that’s just up until 2027.”

Yet even if the temporary worker carve out were removed, it’s unclear when the ordinance would actually take effect. The union and most of the City Council wants the deal to be realized upon signing. The city’s top attorneys, however, said that may be impossible.

At the Long Beach Airport, workers would not qualify for the agreement until the current contract with the concessions operator, Paradies Lagardere, ends in 2027.

ASM Global would have to go through its collective bargaining agreement with Local 11 before an ordinance can take effect.

City Manager Tom Modica clarified that due to the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, the city cannot impose a wage while the affected parties are in active negotiations. “Even if it’s one we like and we think is high,” Modica said.

In a Jan. 7 staff report, officials said ASM Global is working on a proposal to offer non-tipped workers a minimum wage of $23 per hour by 2024, $25 by 2025 up to $30 or more in 2028.

“ASM wants to pay these wages,” Modica said. “They want to be a good partner, they agree and support this, they know there’s going to be a cost. Technically, we can’t require them to do it before 2029 but they are interested in this.”

Additional costs for the wages will fall on the city, officials said, ballooning the center’s already $1.7 million operating deficit, which the city must cover as part of its contract with ASM.

The threat of picketing comes as Richardson plans to deliver his 2025 address, an act that, by tradition, lays out the city’s plans and ambitions for the coming year. In a revised release on Sunday, Richardson said this year will tie Long Beach’s plans ahead of the 2028 Olympics with a call for cash for wildfire victims through the California Community Foundation.

Amid historic fires across Los Angeles County that have since last week destroyed thousands of homes, killed at least 25 people and left swathes of California hillsides ravaged, the speech will see a slight shift in tone, officials said, including the removal of a preview for 2025 Vans Warped Tour.