Baggage Screeners, Attendants at LAX Vote to Join Union
Baggage screeners and wheelchair attendants at Los Angeles International Airport have voted to join a union, ending a two-year battle between the security company that employs them and a coalition of unions seeking to organize low-wage airport workers.
The 285-50 vote in favor of the union was announced near midnight Friday. About 600 people work for the security firm, Atlanta-based Argenbright Security Inc., which contracts with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and several smaller carriers.
An additional 100 employees worked for Argenbright at the Northwest Airlines terminal until last week, when the airline switched contractors. It was unclear whether the new contractor would retain those workers.
The Service Employees International Union, which will represent the Argenbright workers, said that Northwest’s sudden change was made to circumvent the union vote. Questions about the switch prompted the Los Angeles City Council to delay the renewal of Northwest’s operating agreement on Thursday.
Despite the flap at Northwest, union organizers characterized the vote as an important victory. “This is an incredible breakthrough,” said Jono Shaffer, who coordinates LAX efforts for the national AFL-CIO. “We’ve been very successful in the food and beverage and retail arenas, where contracts are held directly with the city. But these are contracts between airlines and service providers. . . . We’re hopeful it will signal some victories with other providers.”
Argenbright Vice President Henry Anthony was on hand to observe Friday’s all-day balloting, which was run by a private mediator under an agreement reached in late May. He said Argenbright would accept the results and work with the union. “We will engage in good-faith bargaining toward achieving a contract,” he said. “We will continue to be very pro-employee.”
The campaign for Argenbright was often intense, involving walkouts, traffic-stopping marches and scores of complaints of unfair labor practices. Dozens of political and religious leaders intervened.
The vote was a milestone in the Respect at LAX campaign, launched two years ago by the AFL-CIO and locals representing restaurant workers and janitors. The coalition identified 15,000 workers at the airport earning what it said were below-poverty-level wages, mostly in food service, retail and security jobs.
The coalition has now organized the workers of the largest employers in each of those three areas, about 3,000 people in all. It also succeeded in extending the city’s “living-wage” ordinance to all airport employees, which raised many employees’ wages from the minimum of $5.75 per hour to about $7.50 per hour with health insurance.
Shaffer said effects of the LAX campaign have spread to other airports. Last week, for example, Argenbright agreed to honor a similar balloting process at San Francisco’s airport. “The speed with which they were able to do it in San Francisco was undoubtedly based on what happened in L.A.,” Shaffer said.
