This story has been updated to include a statement from Alaska Airlines.
Four people, including one Renton woman, were arrested Wednesday as part of a protest over wages outside Alaska Airlines corporate headquarters in SeaTac.
Kadra Osman of Renton was arrested, along with Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant and two others, as they protested the airline’s attempts to not pay a $15 minimum wage to its workers.
In total, about 100 people joined the protest, according to a press release. According to Working Washington, Osman is a former airport worker who is now part of the campaign to organize former co-workers.
Wednesday’s protest, organized by Working Washington, comes after a year of mounting frustration with Alaska Airlines, which tried to keep $15 off the ballot, campaigned unsuccessfully to vote it down, and then sued in state court to block it from taking effect for thousands of airport workers, arguing that SeaTac doesn’t have the power to set a minimum wage.
Last week, Alaska Airlines’ national airline lobby group filed a Federal lawsuit too, claiming this time the Port of Seattle doesn’t have the power to set a minimum wages, either.
According to a press release from Alaska Airlines, the company supports the actions of Airlines for America, which is challenging the minimum age law on the grounds that it undermines federal laws designed to create a fair, safe and uniformly regulated transportation network.
“Alaska Airlines supports fair-wage jobs and voluntarily increased wages in April for more than 1,000 vendor employees at the airport, prior to the Port of Seattle taking action in this area,” said Media Relations Manager Bobbie Egan in an email. “Alaska stands with the entire airline industry as Airlines for America (A4A), the industry’s trade group, challenges the legality of the Port wage mandate.”
Egan said the lawsuit was about whether the state has the authority to regulate airlines.
Alaska Airlines presently pays $12 per hour to vendor employees, according to a statement from the company.
In November 2013, SeaTac voters approved Proposition 1, which guaranteed a $15 minimum wage, paid sick days, and other labor standards for travel & tourism industry workers in and around our airport.
Today, 11 months after the $15 minimum wage was supposed to take effect, many workers are left making little more than the statewide minimum wage of $9.32 an hour — a loss of more than $5/hour for each hour worked since Jan. 1, according to Working Washington.
After a year of Alaska’s lawsuits, delays, and what Working Washington calls “political shenanigans,” the protesters are calling on Alaska to drop the excuses and make sure airport workers finally get the $15 they won last November.
Wednesday’s action is the first of a series of coordinated events at nine U.S. airports, by workers who are standing up to make sure that airports are clean, safe, efficient and fair for workers, passengers, and taxpayers alike.
