Airport Alert: Legislation to Ensure Minimum Wage Rates and Benefits for Airport Service Employees to be Introduced

We wanted to bring to your attention controversial, labor-backed legislation that we expect to be introduced in the House and Senate tomorrow that would condition AIP funds, local PFC collections, and airport grants made available by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on a requirement that each airport ensure all airport service workers at their facility receive certain wage rates and benefits. The 'Good Jobs for Good Airports' Act will be introduced in the Senate by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and in the House by Rep. Jesús 'Chuy' Garcia (D-IL). An aggressive campaign to gain co-sponsors has been underway in recent days, and we understand that some airports have been contacted by congressional offices for their views.   

As we have noted on recent weekly Federal Affairs calls, we have had a number of conversations with key committee and congressional leadership staff regarding this proposal. In our conversations with Capitol Hill, we have emphasized that most of the workers at airports aren't employed by the airport operator and work for airport tenants. In fact, most of the 'covered service workers' designated in the draft legislation we have seen work for airlines or airport concessionaires. Additionally, we have raised deep concerns about the contracting and administrative burdens that would fall to airports to police tenants and employment arrangements among hundreds of businesses and the hundreds of thousands of individuals who work at airports. Conditioning critical federal infrastructure dollars for airport safety on the ability of an airport to certify the actions of these entities and putting important projects “ and the jobs they would create “ at risk in an effort to force companies/tenants to increase pay and benefits is a highly controversial approach that will draw stiff opposition from many members of both parties on Capitol Hill. Finally, concerns have also been raised about the ability of smaller, 'mom and pop' concessionaires to meet the requirements of the legislation, particularly as it relates to benefits.  

While the path forward to enactment for something this controversial in a mid-term election year is exceedingly difficult, we will continue to follow this legislation very closely and relay airport concerns to congressional offices and committee and leadership staff.   

Proponents of the legislation and their supporters “ most notably the Service Employees International Union “ have planned a press conference for tomorrow morning to unveil the bill.  In materials previously circulated on Capitol Hill, bill authors have noted that the measure would: 'establish a minimum wage and benefit standard for airport service workers at large, medium, and small hub airports; extend prevailing wage requirements to federal investments in airport infrastructure for airport service workers, similar to the prevailing wage requirements that have long been required under the Davis-Bacon Act and Davis-Bacon and Related Acts for Federally-funded infrastructure construction projects; and require commercial airport recipients of federal assistance to certify they will ensure the airport service workers at that airport are paid no less than the wages and benefits required under the Service Contract Act (SCA) or no less than a local minimum wage that is higher than the wage and benefits under the SCA, which is the same wage and benefit standard the federal government requires for its own direct service contracts.'