Free Republic

Workers from nine U.S. airports are planning to block bridges, march through terminals and protest at airline headquarters during a day of civil disobedience on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The workers - a mix of cleaners, baggage handlers, fuelers and wheelchair attendants - will risk arrest at airports and other locations including the Mall, to bring attention to their campaign for better wages, the Service Employees International Union said. The actions are the latest in the airport workers' campaign for a $15-per-hour minimum wage, a benefits package and job protections. They're also protesting threats against their efforts to unionize....

Thousands of airport workers in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, and Fort Lauderdale are expected to strike on Wednesday night and into Thursday. The workers, mostly cabin and airport cleaners, are subcontracted by outside companies to work with various airlines, including JetBlue (JBLU), Delta (DAL) and United (UAL). They will be striking for new contracts, which include medical benefits and higher wages of $15 an hour.

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. …

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

DULLES, Va. - Forty-two men in the U.S. illegally have been rounded up and arrested at Dulles International Airport. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested the illegal aliens Wednesday morning on airport grounds at a checkpoint established to verify the identity and immigration status of workers entering a service gate. Most of the men were working construction projects at the airport. Mark McGraw, special agent in charge of ICE's Washington field office, says it's important Homeland Security knows who enters sensitive areas like airports, military bases and power plants. "This operation illustrates ICE's ongoing efforts in partnership with federal...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eleven LaGuardia Airport workers stole hundreds of thousands of mini-bottles of airline liquor and resold them to neighborhood stores in New York, authorities said on Wednesday. The employees of LSG Sky Chefs Inc. and two others pilfered more than 400,000 mini-bottles, worth about $1.5 million, from an airport storage facility over the last year, said Queens, N.Y., District Attorney Richard Brown. They allegedly stole cases of Dewar's Scotch, Courvoisier cognac and Bacardi rum -- a case holds 190 bottles worth about $760 -- and resold them to local stores for about $240 each. The stores then...

This is where we are in the post-Sept. 11 world. The federal government, in the name of national security, swooped down upon Denver International Airport with warrants for more than 100 people: counter workers, bakers, janitors, security guards. You probably remember the trumpets blaring, the handcuffed wrists, the bewildered McDonald's cook. All were accused of using fake Social Security numbers to get jobs that gave them access to restricted areas.Well, the next day, federal agents, still on the hunt, tracked down the people who weren't at work that day and so ended up at the Aurora duplex of Maria Casillas,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --  In a massive crackdown, federal authorities Tuesday rounded up nearly 100 workers at Washington-area airports on a variety of charges from illegal immigration to lying about a criminal background, government officials said.</p> <p>The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the arrests were continuing at Dulles International Airport, Reagan National Airport and Baltimore Washington International Airport.</p>

<p>Fingerprinting and background checks have thus far uncovered criminal histories on more than 4 percent of the employees at Chicago's two major airports.</p> <p>The Chicago Department of Aviation said Thursday that 167 workers had been denied identification badges that would have given them access to secure areas at O'Hare International and Midway Airports.</p>