The govs helped the people

It was on Martin Luther King day in 2014 that the daily News began its Fight for Fair Pay to do right by the thousands of security guards, baggage handlers, terminal cleaners and other workers at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports who earned the minimum wage ($8 in New York and $8.25 across the Hudson), had no paid holidays and no benefits.

our headline of “Govs, help these people” called for quick action. It took much longer.

To his great credit, Gov. Cuomo — one of the two masters of the bistate Port authority — joined in immediately to help the workers.

Cuomo then pushed Gov. Christie to get the Port board to vote unanimously in april 2014 to raise wages to $10.10 an hour.

But then the Hudson became a deep divide, with Cuomo and New York doing more for JFK and LaGuardia crews — the state minimum is now $13 an hour and still climbing — while Christie kept Newark workers stuck behind, even for those doing the exact same jobs for the exact same airlines.

It took a new Garden State governor, Phil Murphy, sworn in two months ago, to break the jam.

Murphy attended Thursday’s meeting of the Port board and asked for basic fairness, to set level wages on both sides of the river, and to put paychecks on the same steady upward trajectory. The board voted yes, unanimously.

Beyond the governors, a salute goes to former Pa Executive director Pat Foye, who battled Christie’s henchmen for equality just as he fought their Bridgegate crimes. and to new Executive director rick Cotton, who followed through.

and a raspberry to Port Chairman Kevin o’Toole, who was appointed by Christie last summer and ducked the fairness issue for six months — until Murphy arrived, when o’Toole lined up with the forces of right. But o’Toole then fell into the bad old Port habit of no transparency and didn’t put the wage vote on the agenda.

Still, as dr. King would say, the arc of economic progress is long, but it bends toward justice.