Stadium Workers in L.A. Prepare for Strike as World Cup, Team USA and ICE Loom

The showroom debut of American soccer appreciation is almost upon us, as the United States hosts its first FIFA World Cup since 1994, but in doing so, stadium operators may find themselves hamstrung by the oldest conflict there is: Labor vs. Management. Turns out, you can promise all the glitzy perks you want to the VIPs who will be packing the suites and private boxes of stadiums across the country, but none of it matters all that much if the underpaid workers decide to stop fetching the caviar tins right as the eyes of the world turn to America. As well they should–as the old saying goes, when you have leverage, apply pressure. Stadium workers will never have more power to obtain a fair contract than they do with Team USA preparing to take the field, so it’s only natural that they seize the opportunity when it presents itself. And near Los Angeles, a key union is doing exactly that, as the 2,000 bartenders, servers, cooks and dishwashers who keep Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium running voted to authorize a strike today unless they reach a contract before Team USA’s first scheduled match against Paraguay on June 12.

It’s not just monetary compensation that the workers are looking for, though, although this is obviously part of the bargaining that is still going on between the union, UNITE HERE Local 11, and Legends Global, which handles hospitality at SoFi. Rather, workers are also looking for assurances that they’ll be protected by their employer and able to go about their jobs despite the looming presence of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Border Patrol agents at the stadium (and many other stadiums) during the event. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has already confirmed that ICE will indeed be present at World Cup matches after DHS waffled previously on that particular question, stressing that the immigration agents would not be present to “enforce mass immigration” but instead merely “enforce the law,” whatever the hell this is supposed to mean. Los Angeles police authorities such as L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna have simply accepted this line without interrogating it one bit, as Luna said that DHS “told him federal authorities would be at the matches to assist with security but not civil immigration enforcement.” And if they simply start grabbing people and detaining them, what then? Are Luna’s police going to stop that? I doubt it.

NEWS: SoFi Stadium cashiers, dishwashers, cooks, bartenders, concessions workers, and food attendants voted 96% to authorize a strike, just a week out from when the stadium is set to host its first World Cup game www.huffpost.com/entry/unite-…

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— Jessica Schulberg (@jessicaschulberg.bsky.social) 11:02 PM · Jun 5, 2026

The workers of SoFi Stadium quite understandably want something put in writing from their employer, promising to not facilitate the feds turning the World Cup into a mass immigration action. They’d rather not simply trust that when they go into work, to cater to the wealthy international travelers who came to America chasing World Cup glitz, ICE will merely stand by and provide “security.” And if that means walking off the job and leaving the stadium high and dry immediately before the biggest sporting event America has seen in decades, then so be it.

“What good is the World Cup for Los Angeles when workers don’t earn enough to pay the rent and must choose between showing up and being kidnapped by ICE?” asked Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11. “If we’re forced to strike, those $100,000 FIFA suites will have nothing but bottled water and Doritos.”

A reported 96% of union voters voted to authorize a strike for SoFi stadium workers. Notably, that does not actually call a strike immediately: It gives the union the authority to do so if negotiations can’t reach a contract before the June 12 kick-off of the World Cup at SoFi Stadium. If a deal isn’t reach before then, workers would walk off the job, although the Wall Street Journal reports that Legends Global, the hospitality company, has a “contingency staffing plan” in place should this occur. That said, I somehow rather doubt they have access to 2,000 trained scabs who are ready to go, and an event the size of the World Cup being run without the usual union hospitality employees would likely have a good probability of turning into a logistical shitshow. Those aforementioned $100,000 suites are not going to be expecting “good enough” service, after all.

As WSJ also observes: “A strike at SoFi Stadium would be an embarrassment for Los Angeles as it gears up to host eight World Cup matches, the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics. It would also be a black eye for FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, which has advertised high-end food and beverage service in the stadium’s suites while charging thousands of dollars for tickets.”

There’s little doubt that such a strike would also be deeply embarrassing to the Trump administration, especially if the driving force is the ICE agenda of Markwayne Mullin, the same man who keeps threatening to nuke the entire U.S. tourism industry by barring all international flights into major cities in blue states. Let’s hope, for the sake of Christian Pulisic and Team USA, that management bows to the pressure of a unified and essential labor bloc, allowing both sides to profit during these exceedingly lucrative series of matches. There’s no need for an own goal here–just pay your workers, and keep them safe.