The city has a pending lease deal with the airlines at
Philadelphia International Airport, but it could be scuttled over a City
Council "labor harmony" provision making it easier for lower-paid
workers at the airport to unionize.
American Airlines, Philadelphia's hub carrier with 70
percent of the airport passenger traffic, and the other airlines have agreed to
a new five-year lease with two one-year extensions with the Nutter
administration that provides $158.2 million in capital investment. Also, it would
include up to $750 million for one additional airport project to be chosen in
the next 18 months.
A City Council committee was scheduled to consider a bill
on Wednesday authorizing the commerce director to enter into use-and-lease
agreements between the city and each of the airlines at the city-owned airport.
However, the committee hearing was postponed because of a
stumbling block over the labor provision City Council approved in December, and
whether or not to include it in the airlines' new lease.
American Airlines officials and attorneys shuttled
between closed-door meetings in City Hall with representatives of the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU) and other airport stakeholders, in an
effort to reach a compromise.
Council President Darrell Clarke adjourned the hearing
until 9 a.m. Thursday.
"The airport is one of the most significant economic
engines in the city," Clarke said afterward outside Council chambers.
"Our ability to see that expand and enhanced over time is clearly
something we, as the government, would like to see.
"But these negotations are tough about a number of
specific issues," Clarke said. "We've recessed today, with the hope
that between now and tomorrow morning [Thursday] they can get a consensus and
we can make whatever amendments are needed to be made and we can move ahead
with a use-and-lease agreement."
Under the lease terms, the airlines agreed, beginning
July 1, to require all airline subcontractors to pay $12 an hour to about 2,000
low-wage airport employees. These workers - wheelchair attendants, skycaps,
aircraft cleaners, and baggage handlers - now earn as little as $7.25 an hour
plus tips.
Many Philadelphia airport workers are covered by union contracts,
but these service employees work for low-bid contractors hired by the airlines.
There is a time crunch to getting the proposed lease -
with or without the labor provision - approved by June 30, when the current
lease expires.
It must be approved, or voted out, by the Council
committee early Thursday, with a first reading at Council's regular session
later Thursday, and considered by the full Council on June 18, the last day
Council is in session until September.
If the airlines do not sign the lease by June 30, the
Philadelphia airport would collect landing and gate fees from them under a city
regulation, "which raises a series of significant risks and
concerns," said airport chief executive Mark Gale, in prepared remarks for
the Council hearing.
The airport's capital improvement program and hundreds of
union construction jobs would halt, the city said.
Philadelphia voters in May 2014 approved a "living
wage" standard requiring firms with city contracts to pay their workers
$12 an hour plus benefits as of July 1, 2015.
The airlines, led by American, refuse to agree to the
"labor harmony" provision introduced by Councilman W. Wilson Goode
Jr. and approved by City Council on Dec. 11. It's designed to improve work
rules and conditions, help solve labor disputes, and make it easier for
subcontracted workers to unionize. If City Council insists the provision be
included in the lease, American and the airlines will not sign it.
The workers would need only to express interest, or sign
a petition, to unionize, and the SEIU would become their union, thereby
bypassing National Labor Relations Board procedures for voting on and selecting
a labor union, according to the City of Philadelphia law department.
American's position is that the labor provision at issue
would set a precedent across the country and increase the airline's operating
costs, the city said.
An interfaith clergy group, Philadelphians Organized to
Witness, Empower and Rebuild (POWER), which supports the subcontracted workers,
said American is trying to engineer a "loophole" that undermines the
wishes of Philadelphia voters and freeze the workers' wages for seven years -
the period of the new lease.
Gale said in his prepared remarks that the proposed lease
"means continued growth and development for the airport and for the city.
It will ensure and create jobs."
The value of the current and proposed new agreements is
"between $2.7 billion and $4.1 billion," Gale said. Over the proposed
five- to seven-year term, airlines would pay an "estimated total of $1.3
billion to $2.1 billion in airport rates and charges," he said.
The rates and charges are used to operate and maintain
the airport terminals and airfield, and to finance capital projects, Gale said.
Source: Philly.com
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