A couple hundred cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers sat on the 94th Street bridge to momentarily block the entrance to LaGuardia Airport Thursday. The workers are asking the Port Authority for higher wages, benefits, paid sick leave and a unionized contract.
Gian Lopez, 22, has worked full time handling baggage at LaGuardia for the past three years. At $9 an hour, Lopez said he lives paycheck to paycheck to afford an apartment in the Bronx with his girlfriend and 2-year-old daughter.
"Without food stamps and rent subsidized, we would not be able to live there," Lopez said. "If I get sick I can't actually make rent."
Most airport service workers are not hired by the airlines, but by contractors that the airlines employ. Hector Figueroa, the President of Local 32BJ, said that by relying on contractors, “the airlines look the other way.”
“We need to restore good jobs at the airports,” Figueroa said. “Our tax dollars are subsiding these jobs, the airlines are making profits, there are no excuses for these workers to not make more money.”
Last year, 32 people protesting low wages and working conditions were arrested for blocking the bridge. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey later approved a $1-an-hour increase and said in a statement that some workers will receive an hourly wage of $10.10 next month.
Figueroa said a dollar increase is not enough.
"We need annual increases that make these workers catch up with what is needed in a city like New York, in a state like New Jersey,” he said. “We need good jobs, living wages and health insurance for the very people that we entrust our safety and security at the airport.”
In a statement, the Port Authority said that in addition to the new $10.10 wage, many workers at area airports would receive Martin Luther King Day off. It continued:
“The agency also has proposed a revision to include retail and concession workers at our airports under the policy as of April 1, with that proposed amendment currently in a public comment period. Additionally, agency representatives continue to work with our airport partners on related issues of importance to these third-party, non-Port Authority workers with the goal of enhancing safety, security and quality of service at our airports.’’