A dozen airport workers seeking a raise to $15 an hour were gently arrested by Port Authority police officers as they staged a show of civil disobedience. Watch video
NEWARK -- A dozen airport workers seeking a raise to $15 an hour were gently arrested by Port Authority police officers as they staged a show of civil disobedience in front of Terminal C at Newark Liberty airport on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
More than 200 cabin cleaners, security guards, janitors and other airport support workers had gathered at Terminal B and marched to Terminal C Monday morning to call attention to their ongoing demands for a raise from the airport's current minimum of $10.10 an hour -- a wage dictated by Port Authority policy for firms doing business at the airport.
Protesters were closely watched by dozens of Port Authority police officers, and the 12 were arrested after they sat down in a circle on the elevated roadway of the departure level in a deliberate attempt to block traffic and be arrested.
Officers, often two at a time, gently lifted the disobedient dozen from the pavement to a standing position, asked them to put their hands in front of them by demonstrating how, and then applied plastic ties to their wrists before loading them into a Port Authority police vehicle.
The demonstration was organized by Local 32BJ, which has been organizing airport workers into a bargaining unit for the sake of higher wages, benefits and improved working conditions.
Patricia Arcilia, a 32BJ official who was one of the 12 people arreeted, said officers treated her, "very, very well, very gentle."
The demonstration did not interfere with flights or other airport operations, said Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Liberty and the region's two other major airports.
The workers were essentially asking the Port Authority to grant them the raise to $15 an hour though its position as Newark Liberty's landlord, with the power to demand salary levels as a condition of the leases it grants to the airlines, which in turn contract with the workers' employers. Marsico declined to comment on the workers' demands.
The bi-state agency is now deliberating on an agency-wide wage policy for workers at all of its facilities, including the airports.
However, the agency's Board of Commissioners has been divided over the issue, with appointees of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York tending to favor a $15 minimum, verses those appointed by Cuomo's Republican counterpart, Gov. Chris Christie, who are reluctant to raise the airport wage for a second time since the start of 2015.
It was then that the agency boosted the airport wage to $10.10 an hour, about two dollars an hour higher than the minimum in either state at that time, when commissioners also imposed a requirement that airport workers get Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday.
Today's march in Newark was one of 10 held across the country -- in Boston, Chicago, New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Miami, Washington, DC, Seattle, and Portland -- to push for a $15 wage, a nationwide minimum supported by President Obama and many Democrats, and the division over the issue within the Port Authority is seen as a microcosm of the nationwide political debate.
Steven Leone is less concerned about politics than rent. Leone, a 27-year-old airplane cabin cleaner who lives with his mother in Newark, takes home $650 every two weeks on his $10.10 an hour pay from Prime Flight, a United Airlines contractor. That means Leone has $1,300 to pay his $850 monthly rent, plus heat, food, travel and other expenses. His 67-year-old mother shares what she makes as a street vender, but sales of earrings and scarves have been slow lately, her son said.
"I share with my mother, she shares with me, I help here, she helps me," he said. But, he added, "It's not enough."
Abou Cisse, 21, also of Newark, works at the airport as a guard who makes $10.10 an hour for a security contractor, Air Serv, making sure no one goes into the secure area of the terminal through the exit for arriving international passengers. For the job, Cisse said he had to pass a criminal background check, and pay $267 for a one-year license to work as a security guard.
Officials of Air Serv and Prime Flight did not returns calls. A spokesman for United, Charles Hobart, issued a statement noting that 32BJ did not represent the airline's employees.
In the case of contractors, United added, "We require our suppliers to comply with all local, state and federal wage requirements."
For Cisse, an hourly raise to $15 would keep alive his dream of becoming a New Jersey State Trooper.
Cisse, whose mother is from Ivory Coast in African, held aloft a sign with a picture of King with text reading, "Destination: Justice," and the hashtag #PovertydoesntFly. He said he was well aware of the State Police's history of racial profiling, and he wants to become the kind of trooper who serves and protects all the people of his state.
"I want to be different," he said. "I want to show other people that racial profiling isn't what matters. I'm still protecting my state."
But making $10.10 an hour and trying to help support a mother, younger brother and sister, Cisse fears he will not be able to finish his criminal justice degree at New Jersey City University.
"I'm afraid that, making this much, if I take out a loan I'm not going to be able to pay it back," he said. "It just slows you down. It pulls you down even more. Like they say, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. And it's not fair."
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.