Miami airport workers protest low wages with Super Bowl week hunger strike
Behind teal-clad Super Bowl 54 greeters awaiting tourists at Miami International Airport this week are other greeters with a less cheerful message: airport workers participating in a six-day hunger strike.
Three Miami airport workers for airline catering subcontractor Sky Chefs, two Fort Lauderdale airport concession workers and four Sky Chefs workers from New York City and San Francisco are forgoing food from Monday to Saturday to raise awareness about low wages and expensive health-insurance costs.
On Wednesday — Day Three of the fast — a few workers sat under a tent outside of MIA’s Door 1 on the departures level, waiting to be checked by a physician’s assistant. Others asked airport travelers to sign postcards addressed to Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines and the primary contractor for Sky Chefs’ 600 Miami workers. Sky Chefs workers hope American Airlines will urge the company to raise wages and provide more affordable health insurance.
The union representing Sky Chefs workers around the country, Unite Here, is currently in contract negotiations with Sky Chefs. A spokesperson for American Airlines said the airline hopes negotiations will lead to better pay and benefits.
“We understand this will result in increased costs over time for their many airline customers, including American,” the spokesperson said via email. “We are not in a position to control the outcome of their negotiations or dictate what wages or benefits are agreed upon between the catering companies and their employees.”
Sky Chefs said in an emailed statement that the company has offered improvements in wages and is discussing other issues during negotiations. “We feel progress is being made with the help of the federal mediator,” a spokesperson said. “We remain committed to negotiating in good faith.”
One of the fasting workers, Emmanuel Valentin, 40, said he moved from Port Salut, Haiti, to Miami two years ago and began working for Sky Chefs at MIA. He makes $10.70 an hour — not enough to pay his bills and support his mother, who also lives in Miami, he said.
He wants visitors who come for the Super Bowl to know how hard he works.
“I want them to know we work for American Airlines and Sky Chefs that have millions of dollars and at the same time we can’t pay our bills and put food on the table,” he said. “That’s what I would love visitors to see.”
Valentin wrote a letter to American Airlines and visited the company’s Coral Gables offices on Tuesday to deliver it, along with the other workers participating in the hunger strike. Office building receptionists did not allow the workers to enter the building.
“We didn’t go there to do violence. We just wanted them to hear what we have to say,” said Valentin.
Another Sky Chefs worker, Ibis Boggiano, 52, said she began working for Sky Chefs a year and a half ago after leaving two housekeeping jobs at separate hotels. She makes $10.50 an hour and said she relies on her adult son, who works two jobs, to pay her bills.
On Wednesday, Boggiano said her head was beginning to hurt. She was drinking a lot of water to stave off hunger pangs.
“We are sacrificing our health so that they will hear us,” she said. “American is the one that contracts Sky Chefs. They are the ones that have to pressure them. Without us, their passengers don’t eat.” Boggiano said she would like to see her wage raised to at least $14 an hour.
Miami-Dade County commissioners passed a living wage ordinance in 2018 requiring companies that do business at the county-run airport to pay workers $13.23 per hour with health insurance, or $16.40 without. But companies such as Sky Chefs that are not on-site airport vendors are currently exempt, due to a court decision. Without the living-wage rule, Sky Chefs workers are subject only to Florida’s minimum wage law, currently set at $8.46 an hour.
The average hourly salary for a Miami Sky Chefs worker is $12.25, and only 19 percent of employees were enrolled in company health insurance in 2018, according to the workers’ union Unite Here Local 355. Sky Chefs offers health insurance for its employees, but it costs around $50 a week, and many Miami workers say it is too expensive for them.
Earlier this month, County Commissioner Eileen Higgins introduced an ordinance that would require Miami-Dade County to consider how companies treat workers when deciding whether to award airport contracts. That ordinance would not cover Sky Chefs.
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
