Workers come in, clean, get laid off
More than 150 staff let go in one day at airport restaurants
The scene at the Chili’s inside Orlando International Airport was bleak: For four hours on Thursday morning, workers scrubbed floorboards, swept floors and pulled out booths to clean. Only about four tables were full.
The servers were being paid $5.45 an hour with only a smattering of tips.
By that afternoon, they and most workers at the airport’s Chili’s location, Outback Steakhouse and three Starbucks were laid off — more than 150 people in all.
“A lot of us felt they had us come into work so they can have us clean the restaurant and then lay us off,” said Isabel Geary, a host at Chili’s who was among those called in to receive a “notice of termination” Thursday.
The airport workers, who are employed by OIA’s largest restaurant operator HMSHost, are the latest in a surging number of hospitality employees who have seen their jobs axed as coronavirus cases surge across Central Florida. The region’s $75 billion tourism industry has been hit particularly hard as the number of travelers to the Orlando area plummet.
At the airport, passenger traffic has dropped at least 30% compared with the same time last year and international travel has plummeted 70%, OIA estimates. Two Orlando airport employees, a TSA worker and a rental car worker, have tested positive for the coronavirus.
For restaurant workers like Geary, the layoffs came as a shock because the restaurant had assured workers a week prior that while hours would likely be reduced, lay
offs were not on the horizon.
So when workers started to get called in for lay-off notices, fear set in. One employee had a panic attack, Geary said.
At Outback, the same scene was playing out, said Kourtney Monroe, a bartender. An active union member for Unite Here, the local hospitality union, Monroe said workers started calling her worried the notices meant they were getting fired.
Many live one paycheck away from being unmoored financially. Unite Here said HMSHost is not offering severance to workers. The union is embroiled in a push to unionize Host’s workers across the airport following discrimination complaints filed with the city, including one by Geary.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s very surreal for all the servers and the bartenders,” Monroe said. “It’s not just the airport, the entire hospitality industry is being laid off right now.”
Across the country, Unite Here, which is the largest union of hospitality employees in the nation, estimates as many as 90% of its 300,000 members will lose work as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
Meanwhile, airport concessionaires around the country are asking for relief from airports, including in Atlanta where airport shops and restaurants have already been approved to get a break on rent. In Orlando, no relief has been granted — yet.
“Some airlines and concessionaires have asked for relief. We are evaluating the impacts of the various executive orders on future passenger volumes and assessing the potential financial impact on the
Aviation Authority before making any decisions on granting relief,” Greater Orlando Aviation Authority CEO Phil Brown said in a statement.
The union is asking that if some of those requests also come through Orlando, the benefits be spread out to include workers as well, many of whom will likely go on unemployment if the closures extend into April and beyond.
“Our money is going to run out so quick,” Geary said.