By Rich Bockmann
Poverty wages won’t fly.
That was the message workers from Kennedy and LaGuardia airports wanted the Port Authority to keep in mind as its board members met earlier this week to discuss its policies toward workers’ wages.
Earlier this year Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye sent a letter to the major airlines at the bi-state agency’s airports in Queens urging them to give a $1 raise to those workers making less than $9 an hour — eventually phasing in an increase to $10.10 an hour.
Many airport workers who do jobs such as passenger service and security work for minimum wage and struggle to get by.
Foye also asked the CEOs of American Delta, JetBlue and United airlines to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a paid holiday, retroactive to this year’s MLK Day.
The communique from the government honcho represented a key victory for workers and the 32BJ/SEIU union, which has been helping the low-paid workers organize for better wages and benefits for more than a year now.
“We applaud the board for doing this,” 32BJ Vice President Rob Hill said outside the PA’s Manhattan headquarters ahead of Wednesday’s board meeting.
“Our understanding is what this does is it takes the letter that Foye wrote to the airlines and it now allows them to put it into policy, which is great and so the airlines that have refused to comply will now have to.”
Hill applauded the Port Authority for coming this far, but said there is still more to be done to ensure the area’s airports provide middle-class livings for their workers.
“Also in that letter was we need health care and a pathway to living wages,” he said. “We’ve got to finish the process.”
Airport workers are looking to join the 32BJ union so they can negotiate for better working conditions.
David Harrison, a skycap at JFK Airport, said he was making $6.75 an hour when he got a job as a baggage handler in 2007. When he switched to the sky cap job making $4.40 an hour, he said he was told the tips he was going to earn would make up the difference, but that has not been the case.
“I’m usually doing more than one job,” he said. “I’m helping people move wheelchairs and that deprives me tips.”
The 24-year-old from Cambria Heights said he tends to make more in tips during the summer months compared to when the weather is cold, but most of the time he struggles to make ends meet.
Harrison added he was appreciative the Port Authority responded to the workers’ pleas for help and said he hopes the agency follows through on its pledge to create better jobs.
“It would help a lot,” he said.
The board voted 9-0 later in the day on a resolution giving Foye broad powers to enforce wage guidelines.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
