Another 100 security workers have officially joined 200 of their colleagues on a one-day strike in New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport, one of America's busiest air hubs, on Dec. 20, five days before Christmas, the union who supported the workers confirmed to Xinhua.
The security officers calling for a strike work for two private airline security companies, namely the Air Serv Corp. and the Global Elite Group, whose business jointly covers three terminals of the eight in JFK airport, including Terminal 4, the major gateway for international arrivals.
Paid eight U.S. dollars per hour, they are responsible for directing traffic in front of terminals and securing tarmac gates, according to Prince Jackson, a 55-year-old security guard who has worked at Air Serv for three year with the eight-dollar salary unchanged.
"We are speaking out because we are not provided the basic tools we need to keep passengers at the airport safe," said Jackson in a press release. "Our backs are against the wall because Air Serv tells us to shut up."
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who manages JFK airport, declined to comment on the influence of the strike. However, some 42 million passengers are expected to fly across the nation between December 17 to January 6, according to a report from Airlines for America, an industry trade organization for leading U.S. airlines.
December 21, the day after the scheduled strike, is among the busiest days of the holiday season, with expectedly 90 percent of plane seats occupied, the report says.
The strike was not organized by any labor union, nor do the workers belong to any, but the Service Employees International Union 32 BJ, the country's largest union of property service workers with 70,000 members in New York, including 10,000 security guards, expressed full support to the strike.
"We're helping them with whatever we have," the union's spokesman Michael Allen said to Xinhua. "They don't have the structure to do what they want."
The union confirmed that these workers have been filing petitions for better training, warmer winter coats and handy radios to their companies since last year, but reportedly never received any official response.
More than 200 security workers at the Atlanta-based Air Serv have decided through voting last Thursday to go on a one-day strike on December 20, unless the company satisfy their needs before the due date. Another 100 security guards from Global Elite passed a similar vote one day later.
Global Elite publicly described the strike as "the actions of the service workers' union that is making false statements and allegations and not that of our employees."
"Part of Global Elite's operating procedure is," wrote Karen Johnson, spokeswoman for Global Elite, to Xinhua, "to maintain a fully developed contingency plan to handle all types of operational disruptions and to ensure smooth business continuity for our clients."
Air Serv did not respond to a call for comment, but issued a statement, saying that "these issues have only just come to our attention this week" and that "we will be speaking with employees on these matters in the days and weeks to come."
Copyright 2012 Xinhua News Agency
