TALE OF TWO JOBS
Huge pay gap for similar gigs Status of airport contractors is key
KENNEDY AIRPORT security guards Prince Jackson and Dolores Holman work the same job — but they receive very different pay.
The 56-year-old Jackson makes $8 an hour, receives no medical benefits and gets five days of paid vacation.
Holman, 51, has a far cushier gig. She rakes in $17.43 an hour, enjoys full medical and dental coverage and gets 15 days of paid vacation. Holman even has an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan — a perk that Jackson can only dream about.
“We’re just as skilled as the other security workers at the airport,” said Jackson, who lives in a rented room in a Jamaica, Queens, basement. “It’s criminal.”
Jackson is one member of a poorly paid army of airport workers earning half the salaries of their peers. The only difference in these tales of two workers is that the well-compensated ones are employed by private contractors hired directly by the Port Authority.
Employees like Jackson, on the other hand, work for contractors hired by the airline companies.
“It shouldn’t just be me making this kind of money because I’m doing security through the Port Authority,” said Holman, a widow who lives in a three-bedroom house in Jamaica with her mother.
“I have fellow security officers just making $8 an hour,” added Holman, a mother of two. “I feel like we should all be making the same amount so everybody can survive. Why should it just be me?”
The compensation disparity underscores the hardships experienced by the roughly 12,000 workers like Jackson who toil at area airports for pitiful pay.
Jackson works the overnight shift — 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., Sunday to Thursday.
He’s responsible for guarding secure areas inside the airport, including employee entrances and passenger exit doors.
The job requires him to be on his feet for more than seven hours a day. y Jackson’s only respite e is one 45-minute break for r lunch.
Over his four years s working for Air Serv, he said, he hasn’t received a single raise.
Forced to survive on $250 a week, Jackson often visits the pantry at his church to eat.
“It’s very hard to make ends meet,” said Jackson, whose 22-year-old son lives with the young man’s mother. “I’m really thankful for my church.”
We’re just as skilled as the other workers.
Jackson lives in a 9-by-11-foot windowless room that costs $150 a week.
That leaves him just $100 for food, his p phone bill and laundry. Jacks Jackson is so strapped fofor for cash he walks to w work even in winter, a journey that takes about 25 minutes.
Holman, meanwhile, enjoys a much more pleasant commute. She d drives to work in he her 2011 Nissan Ver Versa. And thanks to her salary and ample vacation days, she’s looking forward to a family reunion in the Bahamas this May.
Holman also has peace of mind.
Shouldn’t just be me making this kind of money.
Every month, her employer, Allied Barton, contributes $56 to her 401(k).
“I can’t complain,” said Holman, who is a member of Local 32BJ of the SEIU, the city’s largest service workers union. “The pay is good especially compared to the people who don’t have a union.”
On the job since 2008, Holman works outside the airport, searching food trucks and other vehicles before they reach the tarmac.
She often feels guilty watching other poorly paid security guards patrolling the tarmac, she said.
“They’re making way less money than me,” Holman said. “They’re always asking, ‘Are you hiring?’ We feel bad.”
Compounding Holman’s guilt, the lesser-compensated guards must endure far harsher conditions.
“When it’s snowing out, they don’t have a shelter like we have,” Holman said.
They also don’t receive paid holidays. Holman gets 11 holidays off, including Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.
“That was like, Wow,’ ” Holman said, recalling the moment she learned about the perk.
Unlike Holman, Jackson cannot afford Bahamas vacations.
He spends the five days of paid vacation he gets a year at a city conference for his church — Morris Brown AME in Jamaica.
Jackson said it’s painful to watch the way other airport security guards are treated.
At one of his posts, he stands only feet away from a federal guard who does his job from the comforts of an oversize chair.
“We don’t get to sit down,”
Jackson said. “In our case, the supervisors are on your back, cracking the whip, so to speak.”
In contrast to Jackson’s pitiful pay, unarmed security guards contracted to work for the city must receive $12.85 an hour in the first six months of work, plus eight paid holidays and 10 vacation days.
After two years, city guidelines call for the guards to be paid $15.10 an hour.
Jackson said he’s baffled that he’s paid so little for a job that directly affects the safety of tens of thousands of people a day.
“It’s very, very important work, a lot of responsibility, and they give us $8 an hour,” Jackson said.