News

This week U.S. airport and airline cleaners marched across America to honor King's legacy to call for equality and justice.

Every year, people working in U.S. airports generate $8 billion in profits for the aviation industry. Yet these employees are paid so little they cannot make ends meet. Mothers and fathers who work full-time jobs are forced to rely on public assistance to meet their basic family needs.

This is why these workers have come together to call for change. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, cleaners, wheel chair agents, customer service and baggage handlers, at hubs in major U.S. cities are calling for better jobs at their airports. By standing together they are calling to attention the gross injustices and inequality that persist in the aviation industry.

They are demanding Congress take action to ensure taxpayer dollars do not continue to subsidize poverty jobs, and to take concrete measures to ensure investments in their airports are tied to good jobs.

Like the striking Memphis  sanitation workers who took action nearly 50 years ago, and with whom King stood at the end of his life, airport workers are standing up to inhuman conditions at work and the daily humiliations of poverty.

This certainly won’t be the last time we see these folks standing together to fight for good jobs. Already, more than 70,000 workers have won wage increases and workplace improvements by standing together, taking to the street, marching, protesting and striking.By standing together and joining a union parents the cleaners and their colleagues at airports are making real change for their families and communities. 

Picture: Airport worker chant 'we deserve better' at the New York City protest.