LAX Passenger Service Workers Vote to Authorize Strike

Airline service workers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) voted overwhelmingly yesterday to authorize a strike at the nation’s fifth busiest airport. Workers said that they were fed up with declining standards of service and security at the airports. According to the workers, inadequate training, lack of proper equipment, poverty-level wages and lack of access to family health care are causing record turnover rates among workers and driving a race to the bottom in service and safety standards.

The LA Times reports:

[Union spokesperson] Chavez said workers are paid an average of $10 an hour and 97% have no family healthcare. As a result, job turnover rate has gone up to 50% in some cases, he said.

“It’s really driving a race to the bottom in terms of service and safety standards,” he said.

The 95% approval vote gives union negotiators the go-ahead to call a strike at any time, Chavez said. The workers union has been in talks with airline subcontractors, who hire for the service jobs, since July, Chavez said.

While workers expressed anger at their employers who have stalled negotiations and threatened workers who show support for the union, they also called on airline giants such as United, American and Southwest to take a leadership role in calling for higher standards for service, security.

“The airlines can do a lot better to improve services to their airline passengers and airport security, while at the same time make these good jobs for our families and our communities,” said Fanny Fuentes, who provides wheelchair assistance to passengers with disabilities and seniors at Northwest Airlines. Fuentes, like most airport service workers, earns only $10 an hour and does not have adequate individual or family healthcare.

In a recent survey of airport workers by the Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy, 75 percent of wheelchair attendants surveyed reported problems with broken or malfunctioning wheelchairs and nearly a third reported that a passenger has been in danger due to equipment problems or lack of training.

Improvements to training, proper equipment, a livable wage and family health care coverage could be implemented for a cost barely noticeable to passengers. Less than 25 cents per ticket would improve passenger service and airline security. Despite raising ticket prices by an average of $200 and instituting a range of new fees, airlines have been unwilling to make this minor investment in the workers who directly impact overall travel-experience of their passengers.

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877 represents about 5,000 airport service workers in California. SEIU is currently in negotiations with subcontractors including ABM, Aero Port Services, Air Serv, , Aviation Safeguards, G2 Secure Staff, Lee’s Maintenance, One Source, Primeflight, Service Performance Company, and World Service West. These subcontractors service American, United, Southwest and other airlines and perform the majority of the security, janitorial and passenger service work at LAX,
SFO, San Jose and Oakland airports.