I just happened upon a yard sign
today that was advertising jobs for a company that provides ramp and baggage work for a particular airline at Sea-Tac Airport.
You wouldn’t be seeing such signs around unless, of course, the company was
desperate for bodies. And indeed, as one former employee of the company stated
on a business review site in just the past month, it “throws out employees
every week,” while another writes “High turnover is going to be a thing.” One
current employee says “Don’t come to work for this company. The work
environment is very hostile…hard workers for the ones who don’t do work…the
leads just sit around playing with their phones and watching videos…the
equipment is very old, it doesn’t work and they don’t give it proper
maintenance.” Another person says “coworkers steal equipment and get in
physical fights over this daily.” Still another says that due to “nepotism” and
“favoritism,” the job is “alright” if you are an “islander/Polynesian,” probably in reference to the Samoans.
Sounds like what people used to
say about Menzies Aviation, the UK
company which Alaska Airlines contracted after it failed to reach a pay-cut
agreement with the ramp and baggage-handler union back in 2005. I remember those days when I was working at
the airport: everyone who was a member of a union just hated anyone wearing a
Menzies uniform, the equipment that Alaska forced them to use was junk and/or
in short supply, and people actually hid tugs in faraway corners of the airport
so no one else could use them.
And, apparently, nothing has
changed since McGee Air Services took over ramp and baggage duties in 2016—with
mostly former Menzies employees to start, although I'm fairly certain that most of them have "turned over" by now, although the people replacing them come from the same pot. Why did Alaska Airlines make this switch? Even though
McGee’s rampers and baggage-handlers were now “automatically” enrolled in the
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), that
turned out to be not quite the positive result for those employees as it would
have first appeared.
First off, The Seattle Times aerospace reporter, Dominic Gates, is a bit of a
hypocrite. He frequently demeaned Menzies employees, making exaggerated claims (probably
from what disgruntled airline employees told him) of incompetence and damaging
planes—conveniently forgetting that the last serious accident involving Alaska
Airlines, AA Flight 261 in 2000 that killed 88 passengers and crew, occurred
five years before Menzies took over ramp duties. In that flight, a jack screw
flaw was not discovered due to lax maintenance procedures, and the plane slammed so fast nose-diving into the Pacific Ocean that none of the bodies recovered
was identifiable, save from forensic investigation.
Gates eventually had to change
his tune when McGee was obliged to “rehire” most of Menzies workforce—ironic,
since Menzies literally had to start from scratch after Alaska laid-off most of
its union rampers who refused to work at a lower pay rate. Another irony is
that although it was Menzies who was sued for not paying the $15-an-hour rate after the city of SeaTac law was passed,
and eventually had to pay back wages, it was Alaska Airlines that was the true
“villain” in all of this, as it always had been, since they had continued to
fight the minimum wage law, and left Menzies in no position to pay the higher
wage since its contract with Alaska did not provide for the additional money
needed. In fact, soon after the state Supreme Court forced compliance with the
wage law in 2015, Alaska was back in
action to undermine it.
Forced to pay Menzies employees
the $15-an-hour as stipulated by the law, Alaska contracted with McGee Air Services,
which was “mysteriously” founded that year by former Alaska employees in Renton. It
claimed it would be a “better” employer than Menzies after Alaska announced
they were ending their partnership with that company at Sea-Tac Airport. Why
was Alaska doing this? Menzies was an outside company, like any of the eateries
or car rentals that had “franchises” inside the airport facility. They were not
technically employees of Alaska, so they were subject to the city’s laws, per
the court ruling.
Although McGee claims to be
“independent” and can “partner” with other airlines, it is in fact owned by Alaska
as one of its “subsidiary” companies—thus they operate at the whim of Alaska.
Former Menzies employees “rehired” by McGee found this out when their next
paychecks were slightly lighter than the one’s before, and because of an
“exemption” in the IAM contract they were forced to sign on too, many of the
“new” workers, like cargo handlers, saw their base pay actually drop $4-an-hour
less than the “minimum” wage, including yearly hikes. The McGee Air Service and
IAM collective bargaining agreement with Alaska for the period 2016 to 2023 for
“ground handling agents” states that the initial base wage at “date of hire” is to
be $12, and stops at $13.25 after three years from date of hire; this
presumably only applies to “new hires,” but that does not seem to be the case
for everyone, and other union members expressed concern that they would be replaced by new hires under this contract.
It is at Alaska’s “discretion”
that it would abide by any city law concerning minimum wages in regard to its own employees, and in fact the
SeaTac law allows such discretion, which it did because it feared that
airlines would take their opposition to the federal courts. That isn’t all: the
union agreed that while new hires would have a six-month probationary period,
this could be extended indefinitely, and employees could be “severed” without
cause and without notice. Medical benefits only need to comply with the ACA’s
“bronze” plans, meaning the minimum coverage allowed by the ACA. And as anyone
knows who has worked at the airport, if you are not a supervisor or office
worker, there is no such thing as a “holiday.” It always seemed somewhat unfair
to me that you could make “double time” if your work schedule had you working
on a national holiday—you were just more “lucky” than someone else who worked
the exact same amount of hours you did.
There is also this interesting
tidbit:
The Union agrees that it shall indemnify the Company and hold the
Company harmless from any and all claims, awards, and judgments, including court
costs, which arise out of any action brought by an employee by virtue of any
terms of this section.
What this means is that McGee and
the Union agrees to “absolve” Alaska Airlines of any “responsibility” or
financial damages from a complaint brought forward by an employee in the union.
The grievance procedure in the CBA seems unnecessarily complicated and full of
red tape, clearly designed to discourage complaints. If the “aggrieved”
employee is demanding monetary compensation, the process can take many months
and even longer before the case reaches something called the “System Board of
Adjustment,” and even if “successful,” awards are limited to “actual
compensation accruing from the date of the violation, but in no case earlier
than 30 days prior to the date the grievance was filed. The Board will have no
authority to award punitive damages or other penalties or demands that go
beyond, or are inconsistent with, direct compliance with the Agreement.” That
means that Alaska is not liable for anything other than what it was responsible
for in the first place.
Then comes that infamous “waiver”
of local ordinances and regulations:
It is the intent of the parties that, to the extent permitted by law,
this Agreement supercede and/or waive any local ordinances and regulations that
otherwise would be applicable to the Company’s employees covered by this
Agreement with respect to wages, benefits, and other terms and conditions of
employment.
And this is how Alaska Airlines found it’s backdoor way to get out from under full compliance with the SeaTac
law mandating a $15-an-hour wage for airport employees. For all the brickbats aimed at it, rampers were probably better off with Menzies; they'd have the same lousy gear to work with, but at least they'd be making more money.
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