Union Targets Skycaps, Ticket Checkers, Security

The Service Employees International Union Local 1877 has focused efforts to recruit and organize airport service workers at all California airports.

"Our local is focusing on California, because we think California leads the nation on so many levels," said Brian Rudiger, chief of the union's Airport Division. "The national union is looking at ways that we can raise standards throughout the aviation industry."

San Francisco's Daily Review reports a small group, consisting of labor activists and contract service workers, gathered at Oakland International Airport last week, demanding to speak to someone with Southwest Airlines management team -- one example of several activities the union has planned in their effort to organize workers.

Chanting, "Better lives! Safer skies!" union workers attempted to spark confrontation with Southwest and airport management last week. The group agreed to leave the terminal after a discussion with Bill Wade, the airport's general manager, but celebrated the attention they managed to get.

"We made them nervous; they're still watching us," said union organizer Kate Stormo-Gipson as the group left while Wade, a police officer and several others monitored.

The union says airport security is "weakened by a demoralized, low-paid service staff with a high turnover rate." Airport and contractor management disagree and say employing nonunion contractors has no impact on security.

"People want to link us with security," said Earl Hartfield, Northern California general manager for Aviation Safeguards, a prime union target. "But we're a customer service company" that employs skycaps, wheelchair pushers and documentation checkers, "and they have nothing to do with security at the airport."

Rosemary Barnes, an Oakland International Airport spokeswoman, said all workers permitted regular access to secure areas are "thoroughly screened through background checks and fingerprinting and do not compromise security."

A spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, Marilee McInnis, declined comment to the Daily Review.

Sylvia Ruiz, an organizer with the SEIU local, said the union would like to help Southwest "make better choices" when hiring contractors. Of immediate concern, she said, is that the company "not hire Aviation Safeguards when it resumes service at San Francisco International Airport."

Current Aviation Safeguards workers complain their working conditions have "deteriorated" since the company was awarded the Oakland contract. Health insurance is so minimal that many are said to believe it is "merely a way to qualify for lower wages" under the living wage ordinance enforced by the Port of Oakland, which operates the airport.

Both companies providing services at Oakland's two terminals, Aviation Safeguards in Terminal 2 and DAL Global Services in Terminal 1, are "in compliance with the Port of Oakland's living wage ordinance, paying a minimum of $10.07 per hour for employees with benefits," according to Barnes.

Employee Don Robertson said he recently became ill and attempted to schedule an appointment with a doctor under the company's health plan. He said he was told he could only see a doctor on one of three specific days and was charged a $25 co-pay.

Robertson, 51, said he had worked two years pushing wheelchairs at the airport. But now, under Aviation Safeguards, "I do wheelchairs, baggage claim and bag running, and they change it anytime they feel like it."

"We just want a secure job where we're treated with dignity and respect," Robertson added. "They have taken everything good out of this job."

FMI: www.seiu1877.org/, www.aviationsafeguards.com/About/support.htm, www.flyoakland.com/index2.cfm