Faith leaders call out racial disparities in pay for Sky Harbor workers

Public pressure is mounting on the city of Phoenix to address complaints against the company it uses to manage concessions at Sky Harbor International Airport as workers raise concerns about racial inequities in pay, discriminatory discipline and unsanitary conditions.

Religious leaders sent a letter to Phoenix City Council on Thursday asking for officials to investigate allegations of racial disparities by airport contractor SSP America.

The letter, signed by a diverse coalition of 31 clergy members from across the Valley, was received by Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari during a press conference across the street from Phoenix City Hall. Workers and labor organizers from Unite Here Local 11 joined the religious leaders.

“The issue is simple: we are asking our council people, we’re asking our mayor, we’re asking the city of Phoenix to look at SSP,” said Bishop Anthony Holt, president of the West Valley chapter of the NAACP.

The union alleges that SSP America employed 124 servers and bartenders at Sky Harbor, yet no bartenders and only eight servers were Black, according to August 2023 employment data provided to the union. African American workers constitute 33% of the non-managerial workforce, according to the union.

Servers and bartenders are among the highest-paying positions for workers at the airport, according to Rachele Smith, the union’s spokesperson.

“On average, Black SSP workers make $16,841.31 less per year than white workers, while Latino workers make on average $13,742.54 less than white workers,” the letter reads. “These disparities have a dramatic human impact not just on the workers affected but on our whole community.”

The employment data provided to the union also shows that the average weekly earnings for people working more than 30 hours are $1,190 for white workers, $926 for Latino workers and $867 for Black workers. Workers at Sky Harbor have detailed how low wages at the airport make it tough to survive financially as housing costs in Phoenix continue to rise.

The letter to the city council comes after Unite Here Local 11, which represents SSP America workers, filed a complaint on Jan. 22 with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the company violated federal labor law by wrongly firing three union employees.

The union also filed complaints on Dec. 6 with Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and the Phoenix Equal Opportunity Department alleging racial disparities in pay, hiring and internal promotion at SSP’s airport operations. Smith told New Times the Equal Opportunity Department still had not responded to the complaint more than two months after it was filed.

SSP America did not respond to a New Times request for comment on the complaints.

In November, more than 400 SSP America workers held a one-day strike, protesting meager wages and unclean working conditions, including the presence of rats and cockroaches. They held another strike two days before Thanksgiving.

Service workers are not the only ones raising voices at Sky Harbor. Flight attendants also walked out to demand better pay and working conditions on Feb. 13.

Black whistleblower at Sky Harbor fired

At the Thursday press conference, former SSP America employee Jasmine Glass spoke out about being fired on Jan. 22. Several colleagues stood behind her in solidarity.

Glass, who is Black, was a cashier at Sky Harbor but said she was asked numerous times to work as a server when SSP America was short-staffed.

“Yet when I showed interest in applying to the position full-time, upper management told me I would need to memorize every liquor we offered, a requirement other servers and bartenders told me they didn’t have to complete to get their positions,” Glass said.

“In this industry, your position determines how much you make, whether you can afford rent and groceries. Too often, Black workers and other workers of color are the ones working in the back of the house as dishwashers, the lowest-paying jobs, but not as servers or bartenders, the highest-paying jobs,” she added.

Holt said at the press conference council members should ask whether SSP was “doing what it is supposed to be doing” or “looking for things to go out the window.”

“When a young lady comes forward and says that I feel that I’m able to do a job, why can’t she do it? When a person says I know that I can do this, why come up with something that says you can’t?” asked Holt. “This young woman and her coworkers are enduring to the end, and we stand with them until the end, enduring until the end, until we see the end of this injustice.”

Glass came forward as a public whistleblower in the December complaints to the city and Mayes. Weeks later, she was fired by SSP America when the company alleged there was money missing from a cash register during a shift that Glass worked, according to Glass and Smith.

The union did not provide documentation of Glass making any statements about what happened during her shift, but she said the timing seemed “weird” and she had never had problems before with cash management.

Smith told New Times that other employees had been accused of similar misdeeds but had not been disciplined by being fired.

Glass said she cried after being fired.

“It’s not easy really finding jobs right now. I’ve applied to 10, 15 jobs and no one got back to me. So it’s like, super debilitating,” Glass said. In the meantime, she is working in a phone bank for the union.

She said the opportunity to speak out about her former employer has been “rewarding.”