Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Bresette Hames is tired of too much work for too little pay.
Hames, an airline cabin cleaner who works for JetStream, an American Airlines contractor at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, contends the job is physically demanding and potentially dangerous due to high turnover and exposure to extreme heat without access to water or breaks.
That’s too much to bear for $14 an hour.
“First and foremost, I have a lot of instances where I’d bear witness to coworkers passing out due to heat exhausting, incidents and reports not being filed, even though that’s on the job,” he said. “There’s a carelessness from management for that. We don’t get respected … not just JetStream but American Airlines as well. They turn a blind eye to us.”
Service Employees International Union members, including wheelchair agents and cabin cleaners, rallied on Sept. 19 alongside flight attendants and pilots to demand better pay, benefits, and working conditions. Five protesters were arrested after blocking one of the main airport entrances at Wilkinson Boulevard and North Josh Birmingham Parkway in an act of civil disobedience.
“I feel expendable, like I’m just another number to the airlines,” said Katie Otten, a JetStream cabin cleaner. “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.”
The rally was part of a National Day of Action where workers – primarily Black, Latino and immigrant – voiced their demands at American Airlines hubs in Charlotte, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. Although lower-income employees, they are responsible for duties essential to airport safety and maintenance.
They’re also calling on Congress to include minimum wage and benefit standards, including affordable healthcare and paid time off, in the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization for the nation’s 300,000 airport service workers.
“Given the time that we [have to clean planes] that is not enough time and there’s not enough respect for that,” Hames said. “They prioritize not the people that do the job; they prioritize time. They prioritize not catching delays and keeping everything on schedule and on contract.”
Congress has until Sept. 30 to fund the FAA – which regulates U.S. air travel – in the federal budget ahead of a potential government shutdown. The FAA has historically left out airport workers who provide behind-the-scenes services such as security sweeps of planes, cleaning cabins and toilets, loading and unloading cargo, and preparing planes for takeoff and landing.
“We’re short staffed because the pay and benefits are not enough for what we do. I’m working in 95-degree water, carrying heavy bags of trash off planes without easy access to water,” said Shonda Barber, a JetStream trash truck driver who was arrested. “Without us, planes wouldn’t be able to take off, but I’m barely surviving with what I earn.
“We need Congress to step up and make sure these are good jobs so they can retain experienced workers like me. That’s a win-win situation for workers and for passengers.”
Airport service workers want Congress to include job protection standards into the FAA reauthorization bill to guarantee fair wages and benefits. According to a 2017 University of California Berkeley study, better wages encourage employee retention and improve airport security.
Charlotte airport workers have been at the forefront of organizing for better wages. In May, JetStream workers voted to organize – the largest North Carolina labor win since 1997.
“We understand we’re a juggernaut,” Hames said. “Without us, there won’t be flying, so we understand that. But what is to go back to the respecting, you know, it’s across the board. … There’s a hierarchy not only in pay, but it’s also respect that does not come with that and … because of that, you get treated a certain way.”
Organized labor has staged a comeback across the country since 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparked a reckoning over labor and race. This year alone, 350,000 UPS drivers won major gains ahead of a scheduled strike was to begin while 175,000 television and motion picture writers and actors are on strike together for the first time in six decades.
Auto workers at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (Jeep and Chrysler) walked off the job last week in a targeted strike against three plants. The airport workers want to generate momentum for their cause as well.
“It’s starting to empower more and more people,” Hames said. “It’s a growing thing to see change where change is needed. A lot of people do get encouraged by such behavior because they live through a lot of the things that we express, or that we bring to the light about these companies that have been living off treating workers any way that they they’d like to.”
