Unionized Workers at Airport Businesses Could Strike Next Month

Unionized airport concessions workers (courtesy of Unite Here Local 23)

Yesenia Cornejo hoped she could take her two daughters to the beach this summer. A modest vacation that would give Cornejo, a single mother, relaxing time with her children – time she struggles to find working the long hours she needs to pay her family’s bills.

But that vacation didn’t happen this year. Cornejo simply couldn’t afford it, despite regularly working overtime at her job at the Peached Tortilla located across from gate 16 at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. “I had to tell them we can’t go because I’m short on bills,” Cornejo said.

“It’s hard working the whole time to support my family,” Cornejo added. “Sometimes I feel like I am losing my tie to my daughters. It’s hard on my heart.”

That feeling – like she is constantly working but barely able to keep up with bills – is exhausting, Cornejo said. Without a pay increase, which Cornejo and her 400 co-workers who staff the concessions operated by Delaware North at the Austin airport are demanding, that situation is unlikely to change. Thus far, the company has not complied. That’s why, on Aug. 8, Cornejo and her unionized colleagues will take a vote to authorize a strike.

Delaware North – owned by billionaire Jeremy Jacobs and, with a reported $4 billion in revenues last year, one of the largest hospitality companies in the world – currently pays Cornejo $21.80/hour. When she started working at the airport five years ago, she was paid $16/hour and her last raise was in 2022 when City Council increased the minimum wage paid to city workers to $20/hour (which is also a requirement for businesses contracting with the city).

Since May, the concession workers – supported by their union Unite Here Local 23 – have been calling on Delaware North to increase the base pay for their employees to $25/hour. According to the “living wage calculator” built and maintained by MIT researchers, a household with two working adults and two children would need to earn $26.91 to afford living in Austin (a household like Cornejo’s – one working adult, two children – would need to earn $49.25).

If union workers approve the strike authorization, it would allow them to take the unprecedented action of staging a strike, which would likely cause severe disruptions to airport operations, said Unite Here Texas Chapter President Willy Gonzalez. “A strike like this at Austin’s airport has never happened before,” Gonzalez said. “Workers have decided to vote on this because they are having to choose between getting their medicine and paying the rent and putting food on the table. No person should have to live that way.” If the union and Delaware North reach a deal on wage increases before the strike begins, the union could call it off.

As for Cornejo, she is feeling nervous about the vote, but hopeful. She has never gone on strike before and worries about what it could mean for her income while she’s striking and about her employer retaliating, but she is eager to stand up alongside her co-workers to fight for pay that respects the hard work they do to welcome visitors to Austin day in and day out.

She’s also feeling pride. “I am doing this for me today,” Cornejo said, “but I am doing it for my daughters tomorrow.” As they prepare to enter the workforce, Cornejo wants them to have better pay, too. “I tell my co-workers we are fighting for ourselves and for our families to have a better future. It makes me proud.”

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who represents the Southeast Austin district where the airport is located, is calling on Delaware North to meet worker demands and avoid a strike. “Take a look at their profit margins,” Fuentes said. “They certainly can pay a $25 living wage. Hyatt needs to do the same and step up to pay their employees wages that will allow them to afford life in Austin.”

Fuentes’ mention of Hyatt references another emerging labor dispute among Unite Here Local 23 members – this time, at the newly unionized Hyatt Place located on airport grounds. Some workers at the airport Hyatt make as little as $17.50/hour, while workers at the Hilton’s airport and convention center hotels, both of which are located on city-owned property like the Hyatt, start at $20.80/hour.

Maria “Betty” Bustamante, who works as a laundry attendant at the hotel, says she currently earns about $17.50/hour. When she was hired five years ago, she was paid $12/hour. Through an interpreter, Bustamante told the Chronicle she struggles to make ends meet for her three children and mother, who lives with her. She is hopeful that, by unionizing, she and her co-workers can also fight for better pay and working conditions.

But Hyatt has not made the process easy. (Neither Hyatt nor Delaware North responded to requests for comment.) Unite Here organizers have filed five complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that, in the weeks leading up to the union election, Hyatt corporate representatives and hotel management attempted to dissuade workers from unionizing.

Allegations include a Hyatt human resources manager “interrogating [employees] about their position ... on the union and threatening them with possible workplace harm if they vote for [it]”; hotel management holding a captive audience meeting that employees were not allowed to leave; and instances in which employees publicly supporting unionization were sent home early.

Unite Here organizers say that since Hyatt Place workers voted to unionize, July 10, hotel management has continued to take anti-union actions, such as sending workers home early and disciplining a union activist. The whole situation has made Bustamante uneasy. But she remains optimistic and believes that voting to unionize was the right decision. “I don’t make enough money to support my family and on my days off I have to do DoorDash,” Bustamante said. “Like everyone else I am looking for change and I think the union is the best way to do that.”

A wage increase wouldn’t solve all of the financial struggles workers like Cornejo and Bustamante face, but it would give them some financial breathing room every month. And, Cornejo said, it would allow her to save a little every month so that, next summer, maybe she could take her daughters to the beach for a vacation.