Accountable Airports

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Project Background

Accountable Airports

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Ensuring Good Jobs for Airline Service Workers and the Safety of Travelers

Our major public facilities are crucial building blocks of the new economy: by ensuring that their employees have good jobs with fair wages and family health benefits, we can create the thriving communities that are the foundation of a new economy.

As one of the city’s largest publicly owned facilities and a major economic engine for the region, LAX should not be a source of poverty and poor health. For over 10 years, LAANE has led efforts to improve working conditions, passenger and employee safety and environmental standards at LAX. Most recently, LAANE has focused on securing better wages, health benefits and training for thousands of Los Angeles International Airport terminal employees with jobs as diverse as security, airplane cabin cleaning, and assistance for passengers with disabilities. As a result, LAX is crafting a policy to set higher job standards for the airline contractors that employ this workforce.

In 2009 LAANE partnered with health care advocates, labor groups, community organizations and local clergy in a successful effort to secure family health care coverage for thousands of LAX employees. Because many LAX employers have not been paying for coverage, a large number of workers and their spouses and children have relied on government assistance or emergency rooms – or received no care at all. These poor conditions have resulted in high turnover rates at the airport, which compromises safety and service quality at LAX. It also has generated impoverished communities like those around the airport, where as many as 40 percent of area residents lack health insurance.

That is why LAANE worked to craft a policy in conjunction with the Los Angeles City Council to amend the city’s Living Wage Ordinance to require payment of a sufficient amount to cover family health care. By amending the living wage to include family health care, we are building a new economy and providing for workers who ensure that LAX is safe for us all.

In Focus

Video: Swine Flu Fears Expose Gaps in LAX Health Care

Airport workers marched on April 29, 2009 to highlight the need for health care as swine flu fears mounted.

Report: "Health Care for Airport Workers: Protecting Our Security and Safeguarding Our Children's Future" | Read »

Worker Profile: Ana Rodriguez
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