Between 2002 and 2012, average real wages for U.S. airport workers fell by 15 percent. Wages of baggage handlers fell by almost half, from over $19 an hour to $10.60—as the share of those jobs outsourced to contract companies more than tripled, reaching 84 percent of all baggage handlers. Nationally, more than one-third of cleaning
At airports all around the country during any busy holiday season, thousands of uniformed passenger service workers — including cabin cleaners like me, wheelchair attendants, ramp workers, security officers, skycaps, customer service agents and more — are in constant contact with the traveling public. Passengers, who see our uniforms and know that we’re in the
At their peak in 1954, unions represented 34.8% of all US wage and salary workers. In January of 2017 that number hovered somewhere around 10.7%. And though the situation isn’t likely to improve much in our current political climate, significant changes are afoot right now at some of the nation’s airports. Inspired by the organizing
We spoke with Transport Workers Union international president John Samuelsen about the organizing campaign of JetBlue flight attendants, who have filed for a union election, and with Gueldere Guerilis and Melifaite Cine, who work in the Fort Lauderdale airport and are part of a campaign for airport employees to get a living wage.
In the latest in a string of victories for contracted airport workers, tens of thousands of whom have been sticking together to form unions, win raises, and demand training, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to raise wages for 10,000 LAX workers to a minimum of $17 an hour by July, 2021 and to require airline contractors to provide fully-paid, on-the-job emergency response training to protect the traveling public.
For most of the time Syrian refugee Mohammad Al Zayed has been in the United States, judges have been wrestling with the Trump administration’s efforts to impose travel restrictions that he says would keep him from seeing relatives who remain overseas. Source: Fight over Trump travel restrictions back to appeals courts
Newton Ingram typically begins his workday at 5 a.m., sorting packages at a UPS plant. Four hours later, he clocks out, slips home for a nap and then starts a new shift at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where he mans a curbside check-in booth for Southwest Airlines. This routine nets Ingram, 52, about $28,000 per
After losing more than $50 billion in the decade following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. airlines have been enjoying some financially robust times of late. On the front lines, airline employees are reaping billions of dollars in wage and benefit increases, plus profit-sharing plans that spell record payouts amid record income. At almost $81,000,
The people who clean the airplanes we fly, scrub the airport restrooms we use, and do the heavy lifting to get us from place to place can be almost invisible. You might not meet them, but you’ll notice if their jobs are not done. They are the janitors, baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants
Wheelchair attendants, baggage handlers and food workers at Reagan National and Dulles International airports will get a boost in pay starting next year — the result of a two-year campaign for higher wages. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s board voted Wednesday to require companies that do business at the airports to pay contract workers a