Restaurant workers at SFO receive raises after 3-day strike – SFGATE
After more than nine months of negotiations culminated in a three-day strike by 1,000 restaurant workers at San Francisco International Airport last week, Unite Here Local 2, the union representing the employees, said workers voted to ratify a new contract Sunday that would increase their wages by $5 an hour in addition to providing them with free family health care.
“This victory shows the world that fast-food jobs can in fact be good, family-sustaining jobs, and it’s all because workers had the courage to strike,” Anand Singh, president of Unite Here Local 2, said in a press release. “After three years without a raise, SFO’s fast-food workers were tired of working two or even three jobs just to survive — so they took their lives into their own hands and won a better future.”
The general strike effectively shut down the majority of SFO’s 84 restaurant outlets, resulting in long lines of customers at the eateries and coffee shops that were still open as employees fought for better wages. Doug Yakel, a spokesperson for SFO, told SFGATE that “about 35% of restaurants remained open during the strike, albeit many with reduced hours/offerings.”
Most of the striking employees reported wages of $17 an hour, requiring them to work multiple jobs and around-the-clock shifts just to make ends meet, the union said.
One employee on the picket line told SFGATE she was paid San Francisco’s minimum wage of $16.99 an hour and had not received a single raise in the 20 years she had worked at SFO, and frequently had to sleep in her car or at the airport between shifts. Other staff raised concerns about their ability to continue providing health care to their family members, alleging their employer had proposed a significant increase in out-of-pocket health care costs.
“The workers’ compensation is currently not enough to live on,” Singh told SFGATE last week. “[The employers] have not moved nearly enough to get to the place where we can make a deal on a new contract. And that’s why we’ve had to go down this road.”
SFO employees voted to ratify a new contract on Sunday.
Ted Waechter
The strike ended late last Wednesday night after the SFO Airport Restaurant Employer Council and workers reached a tentative deal that was unanimously approved by the bargaining committee. Now, most workers are expected to receive close to a 30% raise from $17.05 to $22.05, free platinum-tier family health insurance with no premiums and co-pays of less than $30, as well as increased retirement income, the union said in a press release. The new contract also includes a retention policy to protect employees’ jobs should restaurants change hands, in addition to a one-time $1,500 bonus. The contract is set to expire in August 2025.
Blanca Gay, a snack bar attendant at SFO for 30 years and member of the Unite Here Local 2 bargaining committee, said the raise would help her support her son so he could go back to college full-time.
“He had to switch from full-time to part-time just so he could work,” Gay said in the press release. “This strike was so worth it to give my family a better life.”
April Asfour, a cook at Boudin Bakery Cafe’s SFO outlet, echoed her colleague.
“This victory is more than I ever dreamed of,” she said. “I have six kids, and this raise will help me to support them. And with the health care that we won, I can cover all of them for free. I’m so proud that we stood up for ourselves, because everything we won will help me give my family a better life.”
SFGATE trending news reporter Sam Moore contributed to this report.