Contracted service workers at Dulles and National Airports believe they are understaffed and think a lack of paid sick leave and employer-paid healthcare may be contributing to National Airport’s #3 ranking among U.S. airports and #8 worldwide with the most summer cancellations.
In a second letter to the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority, two dozen Virginia lawmakers “ask that MWAA update its minimum wage policy to ensure adequate staffing levels, fairly compensate frontline workers and minimize the spread of COVID-19. We support proposals to raise the MWAA minimum wage, add paid sick leave and create health benefits standards for airport workers.”
MWAA enacted a policy in 2018 requiring contractors to provide a living wage for wheelchair assistants, cabin cleaners, and baggage handlers. Workers and their allies in the General Assembly believe MWAA can also enact a policy requiring contractors to provide paid sick leave and healthcare benefits.
In a 2020 letter to MWAA, two dozen Virginia delegates and senators urged MWAA “to act now to protect travelers and to help these vulnerable workers. This is a public health issue. The absence of paid leave requirements for airport workers means that these workers may face insurmountable economic pressure to come to work when they may pose a risk to themselves and others.”
At the Dulles Airport Job Fair two weeks ago, contracted airport workers wearing shirts that read “Jobs with no benefits, are you sick?” peppered MWAA reps with questions about why they don’t receive the same benefits as MWAA employees.
In July, a prevailing wage law went into effect at Philadelphia International Airport that mandates $4.80 in healthcare benefits and a minimum of 11 days of paid holidays or time off. A dozen airports have requirements for healthcare or other supplemental benefits currently or will soon apply.
Because many contracted workers cannot afford their employers’ expensive healthcare, they often go without seeing a doctor or medicine they need to be healthy. Also, many of these workers cannot afford to miss pay when they are sick and often must come to work putting the health and safety of the traveling public at risk.
When an estimated 70 DC National Airport workers were exposed to COVID during an outbreak at a church in August 2020, workers faced insurmountable economic pressure to come to work despite posing a risk to themselves and others.
“Those who lack health insurance can’t afford to go to the hospital, often dying as a result,” said DCA skycap Almaz Abera.
“If I got hit by a car or a stray bullet, I’d tell the ambulance to take me to work, otherwise, I won’t have a job when I come back,” said Paul Blair, 71, a Dulles terminal cleaner.
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Chris Graham
