Traci Park consistently defends corporations and police against workers, and on City Council she sides with business lobbyists and big donors over unions, fair wages, and the rights of working Angelenos.
Traci Park does not stand with working people. She aligns herself with the wealthy elite, corporate landlords, and business lobbyists who want to weaken worker protections, cut wages, and block policies that benefit working-class Angelenos. During her campaign, Park was funded by big business interests, police unions, and corporate landlords, many of whom have a direct financial stake in keeping wages low and eliminating workplace safeguards. Since taking office, she has repeatedly prioritized the demands of business owners, developers, and corporate donors over the needs of the workers who keep Los Angeles running.
Before running for office, Park spent her entire career defending cities and corporations against workers who faced harassment, discrimination, wage theft, and retaliation. She was trained at Littler Mendelson, one of the most notorious union-busting law firms in the world and a key player in anti-union campaigns at Amazon and Starbucks. She later joined Ogletree Deakins, another firm known for fighting workers’ rights, which once defended racist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Republican Party in North Carolina against gerrymandering lawsuits. At Burke, Williams & Sorensen, Park’s firm openly stated that she “exclusively assisted management,” meaning her job was to fight against workers’ rights on behalf of corporate and government employers.
In one particularly disturbing case, Harrell v. City of Anaheim (2021), Park argued that a white employee’s repeated use of the n-word around a Black colleague did not constitute harassment. The defense was so offensive that Black community leaders in Los Angeles held a press conference condemning her candidacy. From defending police brutality to protecting war profiteers like Raytheon, Park has consistently chosen to stand with the powerful against the people.
Since taking office, Park’s former firm has been awarded millions of dollars in city contracts, mostly to defend LAPD misconduct. In effect, Los Angeles taxpayers are now footing the bill for her ongoing campaign against workers and civil rights.
When workers organize for fair pay, safer workplaces, or humane hours, Traci Park is either silent or standing in their way. She has opposed stronger protections for hotel and hospitality workers, including housekeepers who face unsafe conditions and rampant wage theft. She has pushed back against wage increases for city employees, claiming they are unaffordable even as she votes to expand police budgets. She has supported business-friendly policies that favor corporate landlords and tourism executives while weakening worker rights. When working people in Los Angeles win raises or better conditions, it happens despite Traci Park, not because of her.
Unions are the backbone of a fair economy. They secure better wages, benefits, and job stability for working families. Yet Traci Park has consistently aligned herself with anti-union forces. She has worked closely with corporate lobbyists who push for policies that undermine collective bargaining. She has refused to stand with striking grocery workers, hotel employees, and teachers who have demanded fair pay and safer conditions. Rather than strengthening the city workforce, she has supported the outsourcing of public jobs to private contractors, eroding the foundation of unionized city employment. Park’s record makes clear that she sees organized labor not as a partner in justice but as an obstacle to corporate profit.
Traci Park’s budget choices reveal her clearest betrayal of working Angelenos. While claiming the city cannot afford fair wages for its workforce, she has consistently voted to expand LAPD funding at the expense of essential services. She supported a massive police hiring push even as departments like Sanitation, Recreation and Parks, and Public Works faced dangerous staffing shortages. She approved bloated overtime budgets for police while rejecting cost-of-living adjustments for city employees. Her priorities are unmistakable. Police and corporate donors come first, while the workers who keep Los Angeles functioning are told to wait their turn.
Park’s anti-worker record is no accident. It is the product of who funds her political career. Her campaign was bankrolled by corporate landlords, luxury developers, and powerful business groups that have fought against every major pro-worker reform in recent memory. She took major donations from the hotel and tourism industry, which has long exploited low-wage workers and opposed unionization. She was backed by corporate real estate interests that resist fair pay and job security for maintenance staff, security guards, and janitors. Her biggest donors include developers and business associations that lobby against living wages, paid sick leave, and stable employment. The people who bankroll Traci Park profit directly from keeping workers poor.
While Traci Park’s donors benefit from rising corporate profits and real estate speculation, working-class families in Council District 11 are falling further behind. Rents continue to rise, healthcare remains out of reach, and wages lag behind inflation. Instead of using her office to make life more affordable for working people, Park has opposed stronger labor protections for gig workers and ignored the struggles of janitors, grocery clerks, and delivery drivers, the essential workers who kept this city alive through the pandemic. Her policies have helped drive up the cost of living and pushed working Angelenos out of the neighborhoods they serve.
Working people deserve leaders who fight for them, not politicians who take money from anti-worker donors and side with corporations over constituents. Los Angeles needs a councilmember who will champion fair wages, union rights, and dignity on the job, not one who sells out workers to the highest bidder. Traci Park does not represent working people. She represents the powerful few who profit from their exploitation.
