CWA Airport Workers Call on Congress to Set Standards for Fair Wages and Better Benefits

Last Thursday, airport workers from CWA, SEIU, and UNITE HERE met with members of Senate and House Appropriations Committees to call for extending prevailing wage and benefits standards to airports that receive federal dollars. Although airports receive billions in federal funding annually, there are no uniform standards for wages and benefits for frontline airport workers. CWA, which represents more than 20,000 passenger service agents, has joined with SEIU and UNITE HERE to call for a federal solution to establish uniform standards by extending the Service Contract Act’s wage and healthcare supplement to airports that receive federal funding.

Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.); Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.); Representative Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.); and Representative Bonnie Watson-Coleman (D-N.J.) attended the roundtable and heard from workers including James McKnight, President of CWA local 3146, and Donielle Prophete, President of CWA Local 3645. They described the challenges airport workers are faced with such as high turnover, intense deadlines, and unsafe working environments, and stressed the need for Congress to take action to hold airports accountable to meet their workers’ needs. Watch the full discussion here.