Airport: Flights unaffected by workers' protest

Employees of an airport subcontractor staged a protest outside a terminal at Philadelphia International Airport Thursday morning, but the picketing caused no disruption to flights.

"The airlines have reported normal operations," said airport spokesman Mark Pesce.

Several dozen employees of Prime Flight Aviation Services began picketing at 5 a.m., took a two-hour break at 8:30 a.m., and were to resume picketing at 10:30 a.m. until noon, outside the ticketing area B-C for US Airways flights.

The employees assist passengers inside the terminals with their luggage, if requested. They are not baggage handlers who load bags on planes, or take luggage off the planes, and who work directly for the airlines.

Victoria Lupica, spokeswoman for US Airways and American, said some Prime Flight employees were working Thursday, despite the protest. "There's no disruption in flights or service," she said.

The demonstration was planned by SEIU 32 BJ local of the Service Employees International Union, which has been trying for the last year to unionize Prime Flight employees at the airport.

The protesting workers chanted and waved signs outside the airport, declaring they would fight for better wages and rights.

"If we don't get it, we're going to shut it down," one man yelled to cheers from the group.

Signs read "Prime Flight: Respect our rights" and "Strike: Better pay for a better Philadelphia."

Speakers decried airlines' profits and told the workers to stand up for themselves. They also lamented poverty in Philadelphia.

"You have families to feed," Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. told the group.

At the early hour, few travelers were passing through Terminal B, where the workers were demonstrating. A few gave curious glances, but most appeared to pay little attention to the activity.

Bundled up in hats, hoods and gloves, the demonstrators chanted: "This is what democracy looks like," and "Poverty wages have got to go."

The workers were mostly baggage handlers, who said they had been intimidated by PrimeFlight management for speaking out and asking for higher wages and improved conditions.

"We make these passengers' lives easier," Alfred Williams said. "And we get treated like we're nothing."

Williams said he makes $7.25 and hour as a baggage handler and the company didn't value worker safety, only recently giving his team a basic first aid kit.

"The company knows what the problems are," he said, but hasn't made changes.

PrimeFlight, based in Nashville, has not responded to numerous requests for comment.

Philadelphia is one of about a dozen airports, including Los Angeles International and New York's LaGuardia and JFK, where workers this week were protesting the effect of airlines' subcontracting work.

Gabe Morgan, the state director of SEIU 32BJ - a section of the Service Employees International Union - announced the planned Philadelphia work stoppage Wednesday and said more than 2,000 nonunion workers at the city's airport were making substandard wages. Some earn $7.25 an hour, currently the federal minimum wage.

Morgan called the planned action a strike. He said that the immediate goal was not to disrupt travel, but that it could be expanded to other contractors if employees did not feel they had been heard.

The stoppage was announced Wednesday at a hearing in which a City Council committee was considering legislation aimed at improving workers' situation at the airport, where some employees have long pushed for higher pay.

Nutter in May signed an executive order that raised the minimum wage for employees hired by airport subcontractors to $10.88 an hour. Many employees say they have still not seen their pay increase because the order applies to bids or proposals issued after May 20. (Their wages are to increase to $12 an hour in July.)

Source: Philly.com