If you thought lines at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York were long and would get longer over this holiday weekend, they could become interminable.
That’s
because maintenance workers who refuel planes at the airport are
threatening to go on strike this weekend.
About 300 workers at Teamsters Local 553 were expected to walk off the job as early as today. The union has worked without a collective bargaining agreement for nearly a year.
"Allied Aviation has
not been negotiating in good faith since they are conditioning any new contract
on our forfeiting our right to strike and fight for our members in the future.
That is simply a non-starter for us," Teamsters Local 553 secretary-treasurer
Demos Demopolos said in a statement. "We will never give up the right to
strike and fight for our members, a right granted to us by the National Labor
Relations Act."
The issue is who will direct the strike: the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or the National Mediation Board.
"This has been a
coordinated effort by Allied at airports across the country, to have unions
give up on this jurisdiction issue," Demopolos said. "They are trying
to get other unions to give up their rights in exchange for a contract. They
might have succeeded in some cities, but they failed against us at Newark, and
they will fail again here at JFK."
Allied is the exclusive fuel
provider at JFK.
"Quality control of
product from receipt to delivery, electronic inventory management, fuel system
maintenance, environmental compliance and into-plane fueling are a
comprehensive package which Allied proudly provides to more than 120 airlines
and customers that use JFK International Airport," Allied's website reads.
That covers nearly all airlines at JFK, and it comes after JetBlue announced earlier this year that it would build a new terminal at the airport at a cost of more than $4 billion.
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