Some Security, Baggage Workers Walk Out at LAX, Demanding Union

About 50 airport security screeners and baggage handlers walked off the job Thursday night in a union-organized protest that rattled some passengers but did not appear to disrupt service in three Los Angeles International Airport terminals.

The two-hour walkout, at the Northwest, Delta and United terminals, was the most aggressive action to date in a months-long dispute pitting the airport’s largest security contractor against the region’s fastest-growing union.

“The workers are sending a message that they want a union and they are willing to fight for it,” said Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees International Union, Local 1877.

SEIU already represents many airport janitors, and hopes to add about 800 LAX screeners and baggage handlers who work for Atlanta-based Argenbright Security Inc. Argenbright has resisted, claiming in a letter sent last month that “we have a good-faith doubt that your union represents an uncoerced majority of our employees.”

Most Argenbright workers earn slightly more than the minimum wage, with no benefits, paid vacations or sick days. Screeners in the United terminal were boosted to the city’s “living wage” of $8.64 an hour last week.

“We’re stopping guns and bombs and they’re treating us like crap,” said Carlos E. Alvarez, an assistant supervisor in the United terminal, who now earns the $8.64 minimum.

While the walkout did attract attention, it did not disrupt service because there were not that many passengers around, and Argenbright brought in supervisors and others to handle the workload.

Earlier in the day, about 400 activists from several unions picketed the three terminals, chanting, “What do we want? Justice!”

The airport--which employs about 50,000 workers, 20,000 of whom are union members--is seen as a potential power base.

“This is an economic hub for big business,” said Neal Sacharow, spokesman for the County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “It should be for the workers as well.”