U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey joined , who held a rally ‘demanding end of abuses at Logan contractor Flight Services and Systems (FSS)’, while offering their support to all airport workers going without pay in government shutdown on Monday afternoon.
“Washington has failed you,” Warren said of the unpaid federal workers. “It has cut taxes for millionaires and giant corporations. It has put collective bargaining on the chopping block, and now it has stolen the hard-earned paychecks of our federal workers and contractors.”
Maintenance staff, air traffic controllers, and TSA agents at Logan Airport are just some of the estimated 8,200 federal workers in Massachusetts currently working without pay until President Donald Trump and Congress can agree on a deal to resume funding for the government.
“He is holding every one of those paychecks hostage, and I know that includes many people who are here today,” Warren said. “This shutdown is not about border security. This latest so-called deal is about stirring up hate and division, and now the president wants to use Dreamers and TPS recipients as bargaining chips. The same hardworking people whose protections he single-handedly took away.”
This is the fifth week of the longest government shutdown in American history, with no compromise in sight. President Trump and Congressional leaders are deadlocked over a $5.7 billion wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
FSS aircraft cleaners, baggage handlers, skycaps, wheelchair assistants and ticket agents who are fighting to unionize, described working for what they deem are unfair wages, and a lingering fear that addressing their wage worries will lead to their termination.
FSS Worker Sonia Hernandez said she has filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office because she does not believe that she has been paid fairly on three separate occasions.
“There were three paychecks I received where, I believe, I was given half of what I am owed,” Hernandez said. “It looked only like a weeks pay when I opened the check. This treatment is nothing new from this company. I am not the first to experience things like this.”
Other FSS workers echoed Hernandez’s’ frustration over wages.
“I’ve been working at Logan for about 16 years,” George Obed said. “I’ve worked for FSS, doing bag running and security for them, all kinds of jobs for $7.85. I am now up to $14 an hour, but I have family to feed. It is very hard to make ends meet.”
