PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The union representing food workers at Philadelphia International Airport has come to a contract agreement with their employer.
Rosslyn Wuchinich, president of Unite Here Local 274, says the contract agreement between the union and airport hospitality management company OTG is historic — “because, while OTG is not the only employer of food service workers at the airport, they are the largest.”
And the negotiations have been in the works for a very long time.
“This contract expired before COVID. So we have been bargaining with this company since 2018,” Wuchinich said.
“This contract has significant increases for the workers as well as retroactive pay for the many years that workers worked without a contract.”
Wuchinich added: “After many, many years of struggle this is setting a whole new standard for food service workers at the airport.”
A statement from Rick Blatstein, founder and CEO of OTG, reads in part that the company is happy to have reached an agreement with the union.
“That includes free union health insurance along with very robust vacation holiday sick time and of course raises and retroactive pay,” Wuchinich said.
For union member Musa Jabateh, it’s that health care portion of the new contract that’s most valuable.
“I mean, you worry every day about a kid because you got no health care to go to the hospital when they get sick. You don't even know what's wrong with them,” Jabateh said.
“Getting this health care is saving my life and my children. I don't have to worry no more about health care. I can go to the doctor anytime I get sick.”
Terms of the new contract go into effect Jan. 1.