Some unionized Alaska Air workers earn less than minimum wage
By
our reporter
25 April 2018
Unionized baggage handlers employed by Alaska Airlines subsidiary McGee Air Services and cargo-ramp workers directly employed by Alaska Airlines have been working for less than the minimum wage levels established by local ordinances in the cities of SeaTac, Washington; San Francisco and San Jose, California; and Phoenix, Arizona. In SeaTac, McGee baggage handlers earn 20 cents less than the present minimum of $15.64 an hour while new hires start at only $14.94 per hour.
Alaska Airlines workers who unload and load cargo planes start at a measly rate of only $11.74 per hour. The work is backbreaking and grueling, and quite frequently done under adverse weather conditions. The attrition rate is high. Alaska guarantees that bags will be delivered to luggage carousels within 20 minutes of the plane landing, thus creating onerous speedup conditions for the handlers.
In 2013 residents of the city of SeaTac voted for Proposition 1, which mandated employers in the hospitality and transportation industries pay approximately 6,000 workers at least $15 per hour. SeaTac was one of the first municipalities to implement this ordinance in the US. The $15 per hour minimum wage effort resulted from the legitimate grievances of some of the most exploited sections of the working class but was subverted by the unions, specifically the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), as a way of lining their pockets with the dues money of the workers.
Five years ago, the $15 minimum was a paltry sum in every part of the country, especially in Seattle, whose cost-of-living index trails only New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Now $15 an hour is a starvation wage, leaving airport workers needing…