Concession workers at Syracuse Hancock International Airport learned Monday their employer, Delaware North Companies Travel Hospitality Services, no longer has to abide by the city’s living wage law.

The living wage law was enacted in 2005 and guarantees all city employees, or employees of companies under city contract, a minimum wage of $10.08 per hour with health benefits or $11.91 without health benefits. The Syracuse Common Council voted 6-2 in favor of amending the living wage law at Monday’s meeting, meaning Delaware North does not have to follow the city’s living wage law.

Some local unions, including the Unite Here Local 150 and the American Civil Liberties Union, opposed the amendment.

Jeff Bellamy, executive director of the Syracuse Alliance for a New Economy, said he was at the meeting to support the living wage ordinance and opposed amending it.

‘It takes true courage and true fight to enforce the living wage,’ he said.

Delaware North threatened to leave the airport if forced to abide by the ordinance, which would leave the airport without a vendor. Ann Marie Taliercio, president of the Local 150 union, said she believes it was an empty threat and cited a recently settled lawsuit between Delaware North and Los Angeles.

Delaware North spent eight years in court battling the enforcement of Los Angeles’ living wage, which requires employers to pay their employees $14 an hour and provide complete family medical coverage, according to a notice to correct form from Los Angeles’ office of contract appliance. Delaware North lost the lawsuit and was forced to pay eight years in back wages, according to the notice. The company remains at the site today.

Syracuse issued a request for proposals last fall asking for potential vendors to fill the space at the airport. The request for proposals offered a two- or three-year contract and required more than $1 million in capital improvements. No one replied. Taliercio said she spoke with two companies, and they said ‘no one will bid on a short-term contract with high upfront investment’ because the companies are not given a fair opportunity to make back their money.

While campaigning for office, Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner said the airport concession workers were covered by the living wage law, according to an article published in The Post-Standard on March 30, 2009. Before becoming mayor, Miner also represented employees and unions as a labor lawyer starting in the late ’90s.

‘What we’ve seen from the administration is a deep ambivalence about the living wage,’ Miner said in the article. ‘It is the law of Syracuse to pay the living wage, and the administration has put forward flimsy legal rationales to avoid it.’

Phone calls to the mayor’s office seeking comment were not returned.

Not all speakers at the meeting were opposed to the amendment. The two Delaware North employees, Cindy Summerford and Karen Kimball, attended the council meeting to show their support for it. Summerford, an employee of 45 years, and Kimball, an employee of 24 years, asked the council to pass the amendment so they could keep their jobs at the airport.

Job losses shouldn’t have been a concern because the Local 150 changes companies all the time, and the union doesn’t lose any jobs or benefits, said Taliercio, president of the Local 150 union.

This is not the first time the city has faced issues with the living ordinance. Patrick O’Halloran, an employee of Murbro Parking in 2008, had to sue the city to receive his living wage that year, according to an article published in The Post-Standard on Nov. 9, 2008.

‘Unfortunately,’ Taliercio said, ‘the city’s attorneys have attempted to evade the law.’

bpfortna@syr.edu

 

 

 

 

Published on March 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm