After months of fighting for higher pay, airport concession workers employed by Delaware North announced a victory in bargaining this week. The company has agreed to a $25 minimum wage, after 100% of voting workers who are unionized with UNITE HERE Local 23 elected to initiate a strike in August.
Many concession workers received their last pay raise in 2022, when City Council increased the minimum wage for all employees of the city or city-contracted businesses to $20/hour. Now, 85% of Delaware North’s 400-plus employees at AUS will make at least $25, and the remaining workforce will have a pathway to $25 within the next year.
“A few years ago I was making $15 per hour,” said Markeeta Presley, a cashier at the airport, in a press release Monday. “My coworkers and I have cooked for and served millions of passengers. We are proud to represent our city every day, and we are proud of the work we do. Now we will be able to better support ourselves and our families.”
“We work in the back of the house, and sometimes the back of the house doesn’t get seen.” – UNITE HERE Local 23 Secretary-Treasurer Willy Gonzalez
The national contract between the union and Delaware North expired in July, and though the major sticking point has been resolved in Austin, the company hasn’t agreed to it in any of its other 18 locations in the country, including Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver. The contract has been extended until Oct. 31, and negotiations around wages, health care benefits, and pensions are ongoing, meaning there’s a possibility of strikes at other airports after the contract expires. And in Austin, UNITE HERE Local 23 members at another airport company, the Hyatt Place hotel on the airport grounds, are still facing an uphill battle. Some workers at the Hyatt told the Chronicle in August that they make as little as $17.50/hour, and union organizers have filed five complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that hotel management has engaged in union-busting since the workers unionized in July.
“Local 23 members are often overlooked as cooks, servers, bartenders and retail workers, but without them, the airport and Delaware North would not be as successful as they are,” said UNITE HERE Local 23 Secretary-Treasurer Willy Gonzalez in a press conference Monday, where U.S. Rep. Greg Casar and Council Member Vanessa Fuentes spoke in support of the union victory. “We work in the back of the house, and sometimes the back of the house doesn’t get seen … but collectively our voice is powerful.”
Milagros Acevedo, a cook who has worked at the airport for three years, said Monday, “to some of us this is life-changing, we were living paycheck to paycheck. This was not easy, but we did it.”
This article appears in October 4 • 2024.