Hundreds of Sky Harbor concession workers vote to strike

Food and beverage workers from dozens of establishments at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport could walk off the job any day as they push for a new contract that includes raises and retirement benefits.

Workers with HMS Host, which manages food vending for more than two dozen businesses, including Starbucks, Barrio Cafe, Chelsea’s Kitchen and SanTan Brewery, voted unanimously on March 13 to authorize a strike.

The company's 650 to 800 unionized workers at the airport have been toiling without a new contract since 2017, union leaders said in a press release last week.

This is the second time HMS workers, represented by Unite Here Local 11, have voted to strike. They walked off the job for 10 days at the end of 2021 with similar requests, asking the largest airport concessions company in North America for a raise, higher employer contributions to health care plans and a retirement system. The company agreed to raise wages to more than $15 an hour in some cases and added a health insurance plan that costs employees $13 a week.

That temporary agreement expired at the end of 2023, and workers are again calling on HMS to return to the bargaining table.

The March 13 vote sets up a potential strike for workers at both HMS and SSP America, another food-services provider with dozens of restaurants, bars and cafes at Sky Harbor.

SSP America workers, also represented by Unite Here Local 11, voted to walk off the job last fall, seeking higher wages and improved working conditions amid complaints of rat and cockroach infestations. In February, clergy leaders from across the Valley demanded that the Phoenix City Council investigate SSP for racial disparities in pay. Phoenix contracts with SSP to provide services at the airport.

The threat of a joint strike could get workers closer to the material gains they seek, said Victoria Stahl, a spokesperson for the union.

Noor-Alia Al-Shabazz, who works as a barista at the airport’s Starbucks location, told Phoenix New Times that a potential strike could get workers one step closer to securing a higher wage. It’s a matter of financial stability for Al-Shabazz, who said she needs a car to have access to reliable transportation and would like to be able to support relatives in Dallas.

“Whenever they need something, I would like to just be able to get them whatever they want no problem,” she said.

Right now, Al-Shabazz makes $16.45 plus tips. She is hoping to make around $20 an hour. “It would just help me fund the things that I find personally important,” she said.

For other workers, a raise would help them keep pace with the rising cost of living in metro Phoenix and afford necessities, such as food.

A study from Grand Canyon Institute and Worker Power Institute, two nonpartisan organizations tasked with informing voters on labor issues, noted that at least half of Sky Harbor airport employees suffer from food insecurity.

Stahl attributed this largely to the rising cost of living. Wages, she added, have not kept up with basic needs in Phoenix.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator, which aggregates the cost of factors such as rent, food, health insurance, transportation and utilities, indicates that a single person with no children would have to make $24.69 an hour to afford to live in the Phoenix area. Those costs escalate based on household size.

“Workers should be able to afford food every week and rent every month and not have to choose between the two of them,” Stahl said. “That's really the fight we're in now.”

Stahl also said workers want to be included in a pension system. Some workers, she noted, have been working for HMS Host companies for decades.

“I voted yes to authorize a strike because I have worked for HMS Host for over 20 years, and I still don't have a pension,” Lucas Salinas, a cook at an airport restaurant, said in a press release. “I want to know that I will be able to afford to retire in dignity when I can no longer work."

Representatives from HMS Host did not return a request for comment.