A recommendation urging the Metropolitan Airports Commission to significantly change the way it manages restaurants and other concessions at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport could cost 500 workers their union representation ? and possibly their jobs.

?It?s colossally unfair,? said Jaye Rykunyk, principal officer of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 17, which represents the airport workers. ?For a few extra nickels, the Metropolitan Airports Commission is wholesale abandoning the employees.?

The airport?s management and budget committee recommended the changes Sept. 3. The entire commission is expected to consider the recommendations on Sept. 22, Rykunyk said.

Russell Anderson (above) and Tsegersh Tsema (below) are among the many airport workers who could lose their union representation -- and possibly their jobs -- under a proposed Metropolitan Airports Commission decision. Photos by Dania Rajendra, Minneapolis Labor Review

Complicated changes
The airport commission, a public agency that owns the airport?s terminals and concourses, currently leases space to three companies, including HMS Host, which covers its workers under a contract with Local 17. All of those leases expire at the end of the year.

The rules governing how burgers and cinnamon buns are served to travelers are complicated, but the committee?s Sept. 3 decision creates two new possible outcomes. Both could be very bad for unionized airport workers, Rykunyk said. Under the proposed rules, HMS Host ? which has had an airport contract for more than 20 years ? will have to bid against other vendors and developers.

If the airport commission awards the leases to a different prime concessionaire ? that is, a single company that would run most of the food service outlets ? HMS Host employees would be out of work. They could reapply to the new company, but the proposed rules offer no guarantees or preferences that they be hired, Rykunyk said.

If the airport commission instead awards the leases to a developer, things could be even worse for workers. Each retail outlet would be run individually, just as at a shopping mall. Airport workers would have to apply at individual outlets.

Cobbling together enough shifts to make full-time, and navigating different wages and benefits, would be much more difficult than when a single employer runs all the shops, Rykunyk said.

Similarly, dealing with lots of individual employers would make it more difficult for workers to reorganize their union.

Union workers have better pay, benefits
?The airport commissioners are engaging in flat-out union busting,? Rykunyk said. ?And [this decision] has the potential to have huge economic consequences. Six to eight hundred people out of their jobs will have a huge negative impact on our community.?

Airport workers covered by the Local 17 contract make roughly $6,000 a year more than their non-union counterparts.

HMS Host employees also receive health insurance even on part-time schedules, as long as they work at least 75 hours a month, Rykunyk said. But some non-union employees at Anton Airfood, another vendor at the airport, don?t qualify for benefits unless they work 30 hours a week, Rykunyk said, based on a union poll of other airport workers.

Even though the airport commission and HMS Host have received industry awards for how the airport?s concessions are run, the committee seems to be responding to criticism this year from the state legislative auditor claiming the commission is not making enough money from its concessions.

The commission could simply renew its current leases while increasing rents that HMS Host and other vendors pay, said Blake Harwell, a Local 17 researcher. Instead, the commission is leaning toward promoting retail competition ? at the expense of the workers, he said.

?The Metropolitan Airports Commission has chosen a path that is geared toward lining the pockets of outside, non-Minnesota interests,? Harwell said.

Minimal consideration for workers
Under the proposed rules, the airport commission will evaluate bids on a 1,600-point scale. Up to 100 points can be awarded based on the bidder?s description of wages, benefits and other working conditions.

Local 17 is trying to influence how the points will be awarded, but is not very hopeful. ?We?ve been working on this for well over a year,? Rykunyk said, ?and this is the most movement we?ve seen so far. They?ve just been very intransigent about protecting workers? rights.?

Because the Legislature exercises some oversight over the airport commission, and because commissioners are appointed by the governor, the airport ultimately is a public institution, Rykunyk said. She said Local 17 hopes to leverage some political pressure before the full commission makes a formal decision.