Orlando airport leaders are poised to delay a decision Wednesday on whether to enact a requirement that service workers get paid at least $15 an hour.
Airport director Phil Brown cited “competing impacts on businesses and the fragmented implementation” that would arise from imposing a $15 per hour living wage as key reasons for holding off on a board vote.
Also, said Brown in a memo to board members, the uncertainties from a related South Florida court decision and the coming election’s constitutional Amendment 2 that would boost minimum wages statewide to $15 an hour are further reasons for delay.
“I recommend deferring action of implementing an MCO living wage until after the November 2020 election,” Brown said, referring to the Orlando airport code.
The airport ranks as the nation’s 10th busiest and now handles about 50 million passengers annually.
"Their suggestion that we wait ... effectively keeps workers ensnared in the cycle of poverty, unable to thrive and provide for their families,” said Helene O’Brien, Florida Director for Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union.
The issue surfaced last fall when the union charged that several thousand wheelchair attendants, baggage handlers, customer-service agents, security officers, cabin cleaners and other employees contracted by airlines at Orlando International Airport are enduring “sweatshop working conditions.”
Union organizers presented a study to the airport authority, showing that nearly 80 percent of those workers earn $20,000 or less and 47 percent have no health-care coverage.
The airport authority agreed to undertake its own study of those workers’ pay, conditions and their employers’ status.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, an airport authority member, argued to other board members at a meeting in October that it was incumbent on them to ensure wage fairness for all of the more than 20,000 workers at the airport.
“I had no idea people were being paid $5.23 [an hour] and maybe they’re getting tips and maybe they’re not,” Dyer said then. “I think it’s worth spending a little time and money to figure out what is the economic reality.”
The study sent surveys to more than 300 companies doing business at the airport and 107 responded.
Smaller business, according to Brown, indicated they would be unable to recoup the expense of a wage hike from consumers or prime contractors, while larger businesses viewed $15 an hour as an asset in retaining workers.
On Tuesday, another board member, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, said of a living wage “obviously I made that a priority here for our workers in Orange County government.”
Demings acknowledged potential difficulties for small business and possible legal hurdles for an airport requirement of $15 an hour.
“I’ll be very interested in the full dialogue of the board,” Demings said.
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