Fight For $15 An Hour Expands To Airport Concessions Workers

The effort to raise the minimum wage in Wisconsin to $15 an hour is spreading to concession workers at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee Bucks and a local labor group recently signed a deal that will require service and hospitality workers at the city’s new arena to make at least $15 an hour by 2023.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Marcelia Nicholson says she’ll “soon” introduce an ordinance calling for contractors at the publicly owned airport to get their workers on a similar path and allow the employees to unionize.

“Give those people access to the American Dream that was promised to them,” Nicholson emphasized at a Monday news conference at the Milwaukee airport.

Nicholson also wants job training and outreach targeted to high poverty zip codes in the city.

The airport workers are the focus because contracts with food companies and other firms at Mitchell are up for renewal over the next year.

Kim Ayyash-Roman works in food service for an airport contractor, and said she makes $9.25 an hour.

“$9.25 an hour is not good. That’s not right. I’m training people, $9.25 an hour? No, it can’t happen,” Ayyash-Roman said Monday.

Under a county ordinance that previously passed and Nicholson supported, Ayyash-Roman and other private-sector workers at the airport would be put on a path to earn $15 an hour when their employers sign a new deal with the airport. But labor activists say people like Ayyash-Roman should get that raise now and would benefit by being part of a union.

Business groups generally oppose a higher minimum wage, arguing some workers would have to be laid off or companies would have a harder time adding employees.