LAX Security Firm Will Halt Anti-Union Efforts

Ending a bruising two-year battle, an airport security company has agreed to stop opposing a labor union’s efforts to represent 700 baggage screeners and wheelchair attendants at Los Angeles International Airport.

The agreement between Atlanta-based Argenbright Security Inc. and the Service Employees International Union, to be announced today, also sets a union election for June 30. Because an overwhelming majority of workers endorsed it in a nonbinding election last fall, the union is expected to win.

The deal is a milestone in a multi-union campaign to organize thousands of low-wage workers at LAX, launched two years ago by the national AFL-CIO and locals representing restaurant workers and janitors.

The coalition began by targeting the largest employers in three areas: food service, retail and security. Since then, unions have obtained neutrality agreements from the airport’s two largest retailers, W.H. Smith and Duty Free Shops, and its two largest food-service firms, Host Marriott and CA-1. Unions won elections at three, and another vote is pending.

“Now we are on the verge of having the largest employer in passenger service,” said Jono Shaffer, who coordinates the campaign for the AFL-CIO. “This sends a very powerful message to these workers and the community.” About 2,000 workers have been organized so far. At the start of the campaign, the unions identified 15,000 workers at the airport earning below poverty-level wages.

The campaign for Argenbright, which contracts with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and several smaller carriers, was often intense, involving walkouts, traffic-stopping marches and scores of unfair-labor-practice complaints.

Argenbright insisted that the union file for a federally supervised election run by the National Labor Relations Board, but union organizers argued that was merely a delaying tactic.

The breakthrough was attributed in part to the recent intervention of a private Atlanta mediator who supervised recent negotiations. “Part of the problem is you both get so dug in, you can’t hear each other anymore,” Shaffer said.

Mike Garcia, president of SEIU Local 1877, which will represent the workers if the vote is successful, said the high-profile, monthlong janitors strike in Los Angeles last month also may have prodded the company to settle. “We won a lot of respect in that strike,” he said. “Employers are now very apprehensive about taking us on. And nobody out at the airport should want what happened in downtown Los Angeles to happen there.”

Garcia said major bargaining goals for workers were improved training programs and family health insurance, as well as increased wages. Screeners earn the city-mandated living wage, about $7.50 per hour, with no health insurance.

Henry Anthony, senior vice president of human resources for AHL Services Inc., the parent company for Argenbright, said the security company--which has contracts at about 40 airports--was simply glad the battle was over.

“We’ve turned a page here that’s very productive,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything negative about the process. The past is the past. We need to look to the future now.”