MIAMI — Maria Bogarin, an immigrant from Argentina, has never been so tired in her 10 years working as a cabin cleaner at Miami International Airport — staffing shortages, delays and cancellations have sent her sprinting through MIA, cleaning 10 to 11 American Airlines and Delta planes per day, up from the seven planes per day she used to clean before the pandemic.
“We are really overwhelmed at work right now. It’s a lot of pressure. The time they give us is not enough, we can’t do our best work. I’m tired and stressed mentally and physically. My body hurts when I get home from work,” she said, citing back problems and sore feet from a decade of cleaning planes. “It’s hard for me to take care of my two kids.”
At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, workers say conditions are similar: Rashad Grant, a wheelchair attendant subcontractor for Delta and United Airlines at FLL, says staff shortages have left him pushing wheelchairs for two passengers at the same time, or having to make difficult decisions about who to attend to first.
“It’s so stressful when I have to chose who I will assist. You can see the looks on the passenger’s face when I say I have to leave them there. I tell them it’s going to be OK and that they’ll make their connecting flight but I’m not always sure,” Grant said.
Bogarin and Grant both make a little over $17.50 and hour and have had no paid sick leave throughout the pandemic.They’re part of a labor force of workers in Florida who say they are underpaid, overworked and struggling to keep airports running during the surge in travel after pandemic lockdowns. They say they’re stretched thin and struggling to make ends meet — both have experienced rent increases, along with the rising prices of gasoline and basic goods due to inflation.
The union that represents Bogarin and Grant, 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU), surveyed 639 airport workers at Florida’s four largest airports: MIA, FLL, Orlando International Airport and Tampa International Airport and found that 85% of employees couldn’t afford their housing costs.
While airport workers in Miami-Dade and Broward fall under the counties’ “living wage ordinance,” they still only make about $32,708 per year at FLL and $33,696 per year at MIA, with 87% of workers at both airports responding that they have trouble paying their bills. While working through the pandemic, 90% of Florida airport workers surveyed said they didn’t have any paid sick leave, and 83% said they had gone to work while sick because they couldn’t lose a day’s pay.
“Airports are doing really well, it’s boom times right now, and they’re supposed to be economic engines and bring wealth. They receive tons of public investments, but there’s a disconnect between all that public funding and what people are making,” said Helene O’Brien, the Florida coordinator for the 32BJ SEIU.
Bogarin, Grant and most airport service workers — people like cabin cleaners, baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, and security screeners — work for subcontractors who seek to get contracts with airlines by providing these services at the lowest possible cost, which labor advocates say creates a race to the bottom.
“When a passenger goes to an airport, they will see many workers, people who bring them to gate in wheelchair, folks who load bags on and off the plane, who clean the plane – none of them work for an airline, they work for a contractor for an airline. The wages and benefits are very low, high turnover, low wage jobs and they have everything to do with the passenger experience,” O’Brien said. “The solution is that airlines need to require contractor to pay higher wages and benefits and if they don’t do it willingly then the state or Congress needs to make sure that they do.”
American Airlines, South Florida’s largest carrier, said in a statement that it doesn’t play a part in employee relations of its subcontractors.
“This study is related to employees of companies American does business with. We do not get involved in discussions between other companies and their employees,” the company said, noting that AA has created more than 140,000 jobs through businesses that support their operations at MIA.
The union worked with representatives to introduce the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act in Congress in June, which seeks to set higher wage and benefit standards for subcontracted airport workers across the country, hoping to address some of the country’s recent issues with aviation.
Enrique Lopezlira, the director of the Low-Wage Work program at U.C. Berkeley’s Labor Center has studied the links between wages and airport security and functionality based on wage increases at San Francisco International Airport. He said that significant wage increases at SFO led to a decrease in turnover and disciplinary actions and an increase in productivity.
“All these things lead to improvements in airport safety. The biggest factor being turnover, because these workers at the airport are also a line of defense from terrorism and emergencies. If you have to keep hiring and training pre-boarding screeners, that could create a risk for the public and security breaches,” Lopezlira said.
Rashad Grant, the airport wheelchair attendant, would know — he was helping a paraplegic passenger disembark at FLL in 2017 when a flight attendant ran onboard alerting them that there was an active shooter inside the airport. They were told they could leave the plane 15 minutes later, only to hear more screams that the shooting was still ongoing. Grant lead a group of passengers, including the wheelchair user he had been attending, to hide in a corridor that airport employees use to access the tarmac until the coast was clear.
“I was nervous, I was scared but I was trying to show that I wasn’t, if the passenger sees you panicking, they’re going to panic too. But it’s one the things you find out after you get the job – I’m thinking I’m just gonna help people who use wheelchairs, I didn’t know I’d also be security and help with evacuation and keep everyone safe. And you want to be fairly compensated for all the hats you have to wear,” he said, explaining that he’s had to take on a second job with another airline subcontractor and works 64 hours a week in order to get by.
“It’s put me in a really bad situation,” he said. “We need to be paid a living wage based on how much rent and prices are going up.”
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