A year after the Voice first wrote about the struggle of security guards at New York airports to earn a living wage, the guards are escalating their tactics.
Tomorrow at 2:30, roughly 300 security contractors at JFK will vote on whether to go on strike December 20th, just in time to completely scramble airport operations during the holiday rush.
Two hundred of the contractors work for Air Serv, a Georgia-based company owned by Frank Argenbright, a man with a long history of cutting corners in airport security. Argenbright started Air Serv in 2002, after his previous company, Argenbright Security, was effectively sunk by an impressively lengthy string of scandals — culminating on the morning of September 11, 2001, when Argenbright employees waved through two soon-to-be plane hijackers even though they'd set off a metal detector.
Today, employees at Air Serv make $8 an hour and don't get sick days. Some of them don't have health insurance. The people who make sure no one gets to the departure gate without passing through security, and prevent unauthorized people from making it onto the tarmac are treated about the same as fast-food workers, which is to say: badly.
One hundred more potential strikers work for Global Elite, another airport contractor accused of cutting corners.
The contractors have reached out to organizers at the Service Employees International Union 32BJ, which has had a lot of success in organizing security guards in the past decade. But so far, they're not asking to form a union. They've filed dozens of complaints with the Transportation Security Administration alleging inadequate training and shoddy equipment.
The contractors sent their employers a petition earlier this week, asking them to begin addressing the complaints. If they don't see action by tomorrow, they'll vote on a strike.
Air Serv did not respond to requests for comment today.