Sea-Tac Food Workers Vote To Strike — But Feds Won't Let Them

SEATAC, WA — Tereza Kuol Arop makes $12.50 per hour packing and inspecting food that gets served on flights that take off from Sea-Tac Airport. She'd like to make more, enough to comfortably pay the $1,500-per-month rent on her Burien apartment, and so she can send her 17-year-old daughter to college.

But she also just wants equality. She and her coworkers at a Sky Chefs catering kitchen aren't covered by SeaTac's $15 minimum wage law, and so they earn more than $3 less than other workers who help run Sea-Tac Airport.

"All of us, we work at the airport together," she said. "We're not different, we are one."

Right now, Kuol Arp and others employed by Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet are in negotiations to get pay and benefits increases. The Sky Chefs workers, who are represented by Unite Here Local 8, voted on Wednesday to go on strike, and Gate Gourmet workers are expected to do the same on Friday.

But they can't strike yet. The workers and their union have been in mediation with their employers since last fall. The federal mediator overseeing the negotiations decides whether the workers can actually go on strike legally. The mediator has not OK'd a strike.

Unite Here Secretary Treasurer Stefan Moritz said it's unclear if the mediator will ever allow a work stoppage. So the workers are planning a series of pickets and rallies to draw attention to their cause. The first one will take place on June 19 in front of the airport.

The workers prepare food for some of the biggest airlines flying out of Sea-Tac, including Alaska, United, and Delta. Sky Chefs is actually a part of the German airline Lufthansa, and was found to be in violation of Seattle's $15 minimum wage law several years ago.

Moritz said that the airlines are profitable, enough to be able to pay airline food caterers a living wage.

"We think the airlines and caterers can eradicate poverty among their workers," he said. "We're going to work as hard as we can to get to a contract so that they only need one job to make ends meet and to survive in our community here."

(The SeaTac minimum wage law has an exemption for unionized workers, but Moritz said that exemption is not the reason why the Sky Chefs workers are paid less.)

Kuol Arp came to her job at Sky Chefs last year after almost a decade as a home health aid. She uses the word "love" to describe how she feels about the job — even though she works 12-hour days, sometimes seven days per week. She takes pride in knowing she's responsible for getting good food to passengers, and she's partially responsible for planes taking off on time.

Her dedication to the job is worth at least the $16 per hour that other SeaTac workers make, she says. Kuol Arp's daughter is headed to the University of Washington in the fall, but ultimately wants to go to Stanford. Kuol Arp wants to make enough to send her there.

"If they give us a raise, it's good for everybody," she said.