Hundreds of union workers brandished signs and chanted together during a May Day protest outside of the International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport to pressure their airline employers for higher pay and better working conditions.
Union employees with the SEIU-USWW were joined by elected officials from around the Bay Area to call for airlines and their contractors to raise pay to a minimum of $30 an hour – an increase workers believe is necessary because of the high cost of living in the region.
SEIU-USWW spokesperson Stephen Boardman said the rally comes at a time when the union is actively negotiating new contracts with employers and hopes the May Day demonstration will pressure airlines. He said the city has previously mandated a minimum pay rate for airport workers to reduce turnover through the Quality Standards Program in 1999, but the growing cost of living has outpaced any increase in wages.
“There was much less turnover at SFO, and people were staying. It became a much better job,” said Boardman. “But since then, the Board of Supervisors has essentially ignored the QSP, and now it’s at $22 an hour, which is barely above the minimum wage and not even close to enough to survive on in the Bay Area.”
At least 25 people who blocked the inside lanes of the departures drop-off area in a symbolic act of protest were calmly taken into custody by San Francisco police for refusing to leave the scene. Among them, California state Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo, SEIU-USWW First Vice President Sanjay Garla, and San Francisco supervisors Rafael Mandelman and Connie Chan.
Mandelman filed a hearing request with the board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee to discuss the contract negotiations, which are set for May 7.
“It is embarrassing that this airport and these subcontractors are not doing right by these workers,” said Mandelman to a crowd that erupted in applause.
Noyra Gonzalez, 32, is a wheelchair agent with airport contractor ABM and an SEIU-USWW member. She has been working for over two years and said the high cost of living in the area has pushed her and others to take drastic measures to make ends meet.
“In my case, I had to sleep on a couch for two years and it was really hard, because I didn’t have any privacy and I didn’t have a place to store food,” said Gonzalez. “Many of us have to sleep at the parking lot and then you wake up and work and do a double shift, then to go back to your car and sleep.”
Garla said the push for a higher wage at SFO is a result of recent successes at Los Angeles International Airport. He said airlines have been reporting record profits, but rather than distributing the profits to workers they are paying their executives more.
“We are dealing with a situation where big, greedy corporations are running roughshod over workers and our communities,” said Garla.
Garla helped lead the demonstration with chants and walking inside and outside the airport’s International Terminal. Traffic was blocked from entering the departures curbside area just before 11 a.m., returning to a slow flow by 12:45 p.m. after police arrested protesters and removed them from the roadway.
Rudy Gonzalez is on the leadership team with the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council and was also taken into custody for refusing to leave the roadway. He said he came out to support the SEIU-USWW because he believes labor rights movements are won in solidarity and was willing to be arrested for that cause.
“I think it’s an important part of our legacy as a nonviolent movement, a labor movement, a civil rights movement,” said Gonzalez. “We’re doing a very small act of symbolic sacrifice, and being willing to have a criminal record, and also wear that as a badge of honor that we’ll put ourselves on the line for our workers.”
San Francisco Police said all 25 people were cited and later released at the scene.
The airport contractors being called out by employees and local leaders – G2/Menzies, PrimeFlight, Unifi, ABM, and Compass/Flik – did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
United, American, Delta, Alaska, and Southwest airlines also did not immediately respond.