Posted on 05/12/2014 3:18:32 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Several thousand contract workers employed at the New York City area’s major airports voted Monday to join a union after campaigning for better pay and benefits.
The workers cheered as representatives from about a dozen major airport contractors stood and announced their support for joining the union in a packed room at Riverside Church in Harlem. About 4,000 workers signed cards expressing their wish to join the 32BJ Service Employees International Union, including baggage handlers, security officers, cabin and terminal cleaners and others. …
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Another reason not to fly.
As if those airports couldn’t get any worse.....
Strike starts in 3...2...1....
Syay away from that airport.
Seems to encompass the three major Port Authority airports (JFK, EWR, LGA). Don’t know how things stand with airports further out, e.g. ISP, SWF, HPN or others.
Whoops; re-read it. Twelve airports affected.
What do the airports expect?
Airports are large-scale employers running a specific type of business, and everyone knows what that business is. Handling luggage, for instance. So why do airports like to pretend that baggage handlers are not their employees? That the baggage handlers are really working for “outside contractors?”
You bring in an outside company with their own employees to handle things that aren’t part of your daily operations. You got rats? Hire an exterminator. They bring in their own trucks and workers with specific know-how, complete the job, send you a bill, and MOVE ON. That’s what an “independent contractor” does.
Someone who works permanently at the airport performing core airport functions has every right to push back on having his job classified illegally as a “contractor” job. Damn right, he can make more money without the middleman taking a percentage. If striking is the only way to get rid of “contractor” middlemen, I’d strike, too.
If airport management is too incompetent to staff their own operations without the help of outside wage-percentage vampires, they need to be fired and somewhat brought in who knows how to run that business.
About 4,000 workers signed cards expressing their wish to join the 32BJ Service Employees International Union give a percent of their hard earned $$ over to union bosses. /s
“somewhat brought in “
Typo. Should be “someone.”
Damn right, he can make more money without the middleman taking a percentage.
******
Middleman? You mean like the union bosses?
If the airports had treated employees fairly by acknowledging that their workers actually worked for them and not some third-party, they might have avoided all the unrest.
And if I’m an employee and the airlines have set it up so that I HAVE to have a middleman, I’m going to do better with a union boss than some unelected work gang boss.
Now the airport gets to deal with a union. This is strictly on airport management.
Unions coming into a workplace is all on management? How does one explain the UAW trying to get its hooks into the Tennessee VW plant?
I’m not a particular fan of unions. I belong to one — involuntarily — because it’s a condition of my employment.
One way unions get a foothold is when company management is bad and as a result workers are unhappy. Wal-Mart employees are generally satisfied with their wages and working conditions — that’s why organizers can’t enough votes to unionize Wal-Mart.
These airport managers have totally abrogated their management responsibilities — first and foremost, they won’t even ACKNOWLEDGE that their employees work for THEM, not an “outside contractor.” So whom do you ask for a raise? “Oh, not the airport. You don’t work for the airport, Mr. Baggage Handler. You work for Acme Baggage Handling. Talk to them.” Seriously?
They outsource their management responsibilities to Acme because they don’t want to deal with staffing headaches. Well, that’s bad management. Now they get to deal with a union, which is way worse than if they had just cut out the “independent contractor” shennanigans.
In TN, the system worked. The workers were satisfied and told the union to get lost.
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