Hundreds of Charlotte Douglas airport service workers, including wheelchair agents and cabin cleaners, will join elected officials, flight attendants, pilots and community allies for a march and rally at 12:00 pm on Tuesday to protest poverty wages, lack of benefits, and abysmal working conditions, including inadequate water and extreme heat.
“I feel expendable, like I’m just another number to the airlines,” “I had to be transported in a wheelchair to the break room while I was at work because I was too sick to walk from the heat. I ended up in the hospital, where they diagnosed me with heat exhaustion and dehydration. We are already struggling with low wages and lack of benefits. We shouldn’t have to worry about risking our lives when we go to work,” said Katie Otten, JetStream cabin cleaner who cleans American Airlines planes.
Tuesday’s protest is part of a National Day of Action where workers will hold rallies at American Airlines hubs in Charlotte, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Phoenix to demand good jobs for the majority Black, brown and immigrant workforce that help keep airports safe, clean, and running. They will call on Congress to include minimum wage and benefit standards, including affordable healthcare and paid time off, in the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) Reauthorization for the nation’s 300,000 airport service workers.
A September 30 deadline is looming for Congress to fund the Federal Aviation Administration – the agency principally responsible for regulating U.S. air travel. Airlines have always secured a grab-bag of funding and measures to support their operations, but FAA Reauthorization has historically left behind airport service workers who provide crucial services including doing security sweeps of planes, cleaning cabins and lavatories, loading and unloading bags, and ensuring planes are ready to take off and land.
At the rally, workers and allies will demand that Congress write protections for airport service workers into the FAA Reauthorization bill by including standards that will ensure these are good jobs with fair wages and affordable benefits.
Charlotte Douglas Airport workers have been leading the charge around organizing their workplaces to hold airlines accountable – and they are making strides. In May, airport service workers employed by an American Airlines contractor, Jetstream, won their union in North Carolina’s largest NLRB union election since 1997.
