1,200 airport workers are left stranded

NEW YORK >> Maria Campos had worked as a waitress at La Guardia Airport for more than 30 years until Tuesday, when her career came to an abrupt halt that left her scared and empty-handed. She was ordered to turn in her airport access badge and was told she would receive no severance pay and soon would run out of health insurance.

With air travel in free fall as the coronavirus pandemic worsens across the country, thousands of workers like Campos have been laid off from their jobs at the major airports that serve New York City.

More than 1,200 of these laid-off workers were employed in restaurants and stores operated by OTG at La Guardia, Kennedy International and Newark Liberty International airports, according to the union that represents them, Unite

Here Local 100.

OTG said the closings and layoffs were necessary because of the travel restrictions that had virtually grounded airlines. One of its senior executives is Lawrence Schwartz, a close ally of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“You can’t pay people” when the company is taking in very little revenue, Schwartz said.

“The airports are dead,” he added. “No one’s flying.”

OTG, one of the biggest operators of airport concessions in New York, informed its workers that they would receive no severance and that their health insurance would lapse March 31.

Many workers said they resented the way OTG handled the layoffs.

Edith Muzquiz, a bartender in Terminal C at Newark Liberty, said she was called into a meeting in an OTG restaurant there at 11 p.m. Monday and told, along with a few dozen other employees, that they were being laid off immediately.

She said they were escorted out and told to surrender their badges.

On Wednesday, she received an official notice from OTG that said, “You should consider your layoff to be permanent as the situation is unprecedented and the effects are unknown.”

The notice went on to say that “OTG is not offering severance packages, however due to the impact the COVID-19 is having on the nation, many local governments are offering additional assistance to impaired workers.”

Muzquiz, who had worked for OTG in the airport for five years, said she understood the predicament the company was in, but she took issue with the message and the way it was delivered: a curt dismissal that offered no compensation or benefits to help employees left jobless in an economy that is cratering.