Boost in pay may land on ballot
Thousands of service workers at Denver International Airport could see their pay rise under a union-backed ballot proposal that aims to set a special minimum wage for DIA.
If city voters approve the proposed initiative in the May 2019 municipal election, it would set a minimum wage of $13 an hour, ratcheting up to $15 by mid-2021. The pay rate then would be pegged to inflation annually.
The Denver Airport Minimum Wage Initiative, spearheaded by the Unite Here union, would apply to most nongovernment workers at DIA. It would trump Colorado’s rising statewide minimum wage, which is now $10.20 an hour and is set to top out at $12 in 2020.
But first, the union has to qualify the measure for the ballot.
“In city after city, airport workers have stood up for and won higher wages,” said Kevin Abels, the Denver chapter president of Unite Here’s Local 23. “Denver is going to be next. Our ballot measure is an opportunity to lift up thousands of families in our community.”
Already, some airport employers are wary of the proposal. Leaders of the DIA Concessionaires Association argued in an interview Thursday that some airport-based businesses operate on slim margins and can’t necessarily afford such a boost in worker pay.
Many employers pay hourly rates above the state minimum wage, even for fast-food workers, to be competitive in a tight labor market, a contention confirmed by a scan of airport job listings that showed many entry-level jobs in the $11 to $15 range.
“We’re having a difficult time just bringing employees out,” said Dennis Deslongchamp, who chairs the association’s board. He is president of Airport Hospitality Services, the operator of locations that include Elway’s and La Casita restaurants.
The union plans to file ballot-title paperwork in coming days, which would clear the way for organizers to begin collecting the required 4,726 verified signatures from registered voters on ballot petitions to meet Denver’s current threshold.
A union representative met with city officials for a required legal review session earlier this week.
The union is active at airports nationally and represents some workers at DIA. In recent months, it has led a drive to unionize United Airlines catering kitchen workers in five U.S. cities, including nearly 600 workers in Denver.
According to national union research that Unite Here provided, the establishment of a $15-an-hour minimum wage at DIA potentially would affect an estimated 6,300 workers. About 35,000 people work at DIA, most of them employed by airport contractors or businesses that have concession deals to operate on airport property.
The proposal, as drafted, would exempt employers with 30 or fewer employees from having to pay the higher minimum wage. Solar-energy providers and agricultural businesses on airport property also would be exempt, as would businesses that work irregularly or only occasionally at the airport.
The ballot measure also would allow employers to pay tipped workers less, as they often do under the state minimum wage.
Under Colorado law, Denver and other cities and counties can’t set “jurisdiction-wide” minimum wages that are higher than the state minimum. But Unite Here officials believe the DIA-centric proposal is allowed under that law because it’s more targeted.
Two years ago, nearly 55 percent of voters approved Amendment 70, which ordered the boost in the state’s minimum wage over time from $8.31 to $12.
The result in Denver, where the amendment drew 71 percent support, gives optimism to union leaders about their proposal’s chances.
Deslongchamp and Colleen Forst, another board leader who operates several TCBY locations at DIA and is a partner in upcoming concession ventures, say the association’s members are still examining the potential impact. They plan to discuss the measure at an upcoming meeting.
Unite Here cited 15 other U.S. airports with higher minimum wages for airport workers, including San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma, Minneapolis-St. Paul and major airports in and near Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C. In Los Angeles, airport workers must be paid $13.75 an hour if they’re provided with health benefits, and $18.99 if they aren’t.
Forst said that unlike some of those airports, DIA doesn’t place control of concessions in the hands of one or two large operators.
“Denver has really prided itself on involving local businesses and concepts,” Forst said. “We work hard to keep our employees happy and pay them above the minimum wage to come to the airport. And we really can’t figure out what’s broken” that supports the need for a higher minimum wage.
Attempts to obtain comment from contractors that provide janitorial workers and security guards at DIA weren’t successful. A DIA spokeswoman declined to comment on the proposed measure.