Philadelphia Airport Workers To Strike, Reports Say

More than 2,000 workers, including cleaners, wheelchair attendants, and baggage handlers plan tostrike at Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago OHare, Newark Liberty andNew Yorks Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, the Service Employees global Union said.

“Intimidation, harassment and antiworker tactics don’t belong in airports”, NBC News quoted the Service Employees global Union (SEIU) as saying. Were checking with airports and will update this post as soon as we hear back.

Neither American Airlines nor its direct employees are involved.

Once contracted directly with airlines or airports, most of these service jobs are now outsourced to companies that compete for the contracts. “We will likely take it a day at a time”, Brown said. “If there were to be a job action, the airport would coordinate with the airlines to assure passenger convenience and smooth operations”, she said.

The protest will kick off at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a 7:30 a.m. rally Thursday outside Philadelphia airport B and C terminals.

A few of its members earn as little as $6.75 per hour, according to union leaders, despite a nationwide push among pro-labor policymakers to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The SEIU, which seeks to unionize these workers, declined to name their employers in advance of the strike so the companies could not prevent it or threaten retaliation.

The workers chose November 18 and November 19 for their “simultaneous strikes”, as the busy Thanksgiving travel season begins, to call attention to demands for better wages and treatment.