Cashiers, baristas, bartenders, cooks and lounge attendants at San Francisco Worldwide Airport launched an open-ended strike Monday over staffing ranges and wages, shutting down most of one of many nation’s busiest airport’s meals concessions.
Airport workers are striking and protesting across the country
Throughout the nation, flight attendants and airport employees are responding to a hailstorm of office points associated to pay and staffing ranges. Airline journey through the pandemic restoration has been marred by lots of of 1000’s of canceled and delayed flights, assaults on flight attendants and widespread desperation amongst airport employees and vacationers.
Whereas neither the strike by airport concession employees nor the protests by flight attendants are anticipated to disrupt air journey this week, they’re the most recent indicators of upheaval within the nation’s transportation sector, coming simply weeks after rail employees narrowly averted a strike fueled largely by nationwide labor shortages.
Within the airline business, the airways and air visitors controllers preserve pointing at one another, to fend off blame for disruptions as demand for air journey has rebounded. Airways specifically are struggling to draw employees in a red-hot labor market the place less-grueling jobs are simpler to come back by, and federal information exhibits that airways are answerable for the excessive charge of cancellations. The air transportation business continues to be down 54,000 employees in comparison with February 2020.
Lucinda To is among the many 1,000 employees on strike at San Francisco Worldwide, the place she has labored for 20 years. She prepares buffets, washes dishes and clears tables at eating places and the United Membership lounge for weary vacationers. It’s draining work that has solely gotten more durable this 12 months, she stated. With inflation at 40-year-highs, To stated she has to work 60 hours per week at two meals service jobs on the airport for $16.99 an hour to afford a two-bedroom unit within the Bay Space. Her mortgage is $2,800 a month.
“Proper now, on my wage, I make so little that I couldn’t even purchase one meal at this airport, the place hamburgers are $22,” To stated. “I have to work two jobs to assist my household, and I’m at all times working double shifts.”
To, 61, commonly spends the night time in her automobile on the airport, to avoid wasting on gasoline and go the time between shifts that stretch late into the night time and begin early the subsequent day.
The strike at San Francisco Worldwide is anticipated to close down “nearly each meals and beverage outlet inside the airport,” Unite Right here Native 2 union leaders stated, and the union is urging vacationers to convey their very own meals. The meals service employees are employed by greater than 30 corporations at 84 meals and beverage shops.
“The San Francisco Worldwide Airport advises vacationers {that a} labor motion by airport meals employees is impacting staffing [at] eating places and lounges,” stated Doug Yankel, a spokesperson for the airport. “Some meals and beverage shops are closed, whereas others stay open with restricted hours and choices.”
Further protests amongst meals service employees are being deliberate, union officers stated.
Flight attendants for United and Southwest will show on Tuesday amid drawn-out contract negotiations over wages, staffing ranges and rescheduling of employees when flights are delayed or canceled. The protests will occur exterior airports in Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington and different cities.
At United, flight attendants stated their lives have been upended by cancellations and delays, which routinely power them to spend hours, unpaid, ready on the telephone with the airline’s scheduling companies. Some attendants slept on cots in airports this summer season as a result of inns had been overbooked.
The employees stated the delays are brought on by understaffing inside the scheduling division.
Scott Pejas, a United flight attendant in Chicago and president of his native chapter of the Affiliation of Flight Attendants, stated disruptions to schedules have change into the norm for flight attendants.
“We’re mentally and bodily exhausted, as a result of as an alternative of getting relaxation, we’re on maintain, on the telephone, looking for out the place we’re going to spend the night time or layover,” Pejas stated. “Flight attendants will land someplace at 10 p.m. and have to attend till 1 a.m. on the telephone to search out out the place they’re going to sleep. We’re not getting relaxation.”
Joshua Freed, a spokesperson for United, stated the corporate is keen to achieve a contract settlement with the union to deal with flight attendants’ considerations.
“We’ve labored onerous to cut back wait occasions for flight attendants to speak to a crew scheduler, together with extra hiring and including digital choices for some objects,” he added.
Lynn Montgomery, the president of TWU Native 556, which represents 18,000 Southwest flight attendants nationwide, stated flight disruptions have change into so routine that “employees are always working exterior their regular schedule.”
“I’ve by no means seen flight attendants so disheartened,” stated Montgomery, who has additionally labored as a Southwest flight attendant for 30 years. “They really feel like they’ve given and given, and the corporate isn’t giving again to them. It’s far more investor-focused nowadays than employee-friendly.”
A spokesperson for Southwest stated the airline inspired workers to precise their opinions.
“Informational picketing is frequent throughout contract negotiations, and we don’t anticipate any disruption in service ensuing from the demonstration deliberate by off-duty flight attendants,” the spokesperson stated.
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