March 2022

Airport Food Service Workers Rally for Fair Contract

UNITE HERE Local 2 airport food service workers picketed at SFO February 18 to demand a fair contract with airline food service vendors. Local 2 is negotiating new contracts with the unionized employers and organizing new workers at other SFO food service vendors. The union members said several new food service businesses at SFO are failing to comply with SFO standards for wages and benefits and agreements between Local 2 and the multi-employer group representing restaurants and retailers.

UNITE HERE Local 2 airline food service workers have not had a raise since 2018, and have been hit hard by the pandemic. Union members noted that and even now, as travel and tourism business is picking up, some restaurant bosses are using the crisis to slash jobs. Many airport food service workers are forced to work two airport jobs in order to have enough hours to fully fund their medical benefits as some employers, like SSP America, are cutting the hours of long-time employees and attacking the seniority rights that are part of the foundation of the union contract.

Local 2 members also called out the corporate greed of the multinational airline catering contractor Sky Chefs, which moved its SFO jobs to San Jose to avoid San Francisco’s law mandating higher wages and affordable family healthcare. Local 2 represents food service workers at Sky Chefs, the food provider for American Airlines.

Union members handed out flyers to travelers urging them to tell airport management to enforce its card check neutrality policy for unionizing, tell American Airlines that Sky Chefs is a scofflaw, and tell restaurants and food service managers to bring back workers, stop cutting schedules, and pay living wages with benefits.

Several elected officials and members of labor unions walked the picket lines in solidarity with HERE Local 2 members.