Photo Credit Matthew Laczko

---

Last week, in a deadlocked city council vote, longtime Democratic Mayor of Charlotte Vi Lyles cast the tie-breaking vote to prevent the council from even studying a proposed ordinance from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that would raise wages and improve conditions for workers employed by airline contractors in the city. 

According to its website, Charlotte Douglas International Airport is the seventh busiest airport in the world for aircraft operations and the ninth busiest in North America for passenger traffic. In 2024, passenger counts reached a record-breaking 58,811,725, and aircraft arrivals and departures rose to 596,583. However, workers contracted to work at the airport make as little as $14 an hour and work in miserable conditions, under intense expectations, and often through excruciating heat in the summer without breaks. In 2023, a cabin cleaner at the Airport told the Working People’s Press that she had to take painkillers every day just to make it through a shift.

The City of Charlotte, which owns the airport, along with many members of its wealthy elite, has a vested interest in the financial success of the airport and maintains close business ties with American Airlines. American Airlines, which earned billions in revenue last year, uses the Charlotte Douglas International Airport as one of its central hubs. As mentioned in an article from the Charlotte Observer, American Airlines accounts for about 90% of all flights out of the airport. Seeking to increase profits since 2017, the local government has been planning an expansion to the airport, which would displace historic, established, working-class, Black, and brown families and neighborhoods. American Airlines has invested $3 billion into expansions and infrastructure projects at the airport. The company  stated its confidence in city officials to support their interests when AA COO David Seymour stated “we continue to bet on Charlotte, and as the team tells me that’s really not much of a gamble.” 

Capitalism thrives on its exploitation of the working class. The proposed ordinance from the SEIU would require American Airlines to increase pay for workers contracted by the company at the airport, which would cut into the profits it currently receives and expects to see from its investments. This would harm not only the company but also the many local politicians and business figures who have aligned themselves with it. Johnny Harris, President of Lincoln Harris, the Carolina branch of the billion-dollar Lincoln Property company, wrote an op-ed criticizing the fact that even a few city councilors supported simply studying the ordinance. He praised city councilors Danté Anderson, Malcolm Graham, Marjorie Molina, Ed Driggs, and Edwin Peacock, along with Mayor Vi Lyles, for voting against it. What he didn’t disclose, of course, is that he is a major donor to Vi Lyles and other local politicians, and that his company has invested over $80 million into several properties around the airport in recent years. So, naturally, he and the politicians he supports do not want to see the airport’s profits reduced even slightly by modestly improving workers’ wages or providing them with regular breaks.

Those who voted against the ordinance stated that the city government cannot interject itself into private contracts; however, this is false. The city chooses with whom it signs contracts , and there’s nothing stopping it from signing a contract with a company that states it will provide improved wages and working conditions. However, it chooses not to, and instead works with companies that will pay contracted airport workers abysmal wages. The fact that the Mayor and half the city council voted against even studying the topic shows where their interests lie. 

Many, including members of the SEIU, rightfully angered at the city council and Mayor once again siding with billion-dollar companies over workers, have immediately pivoted to the 2025 City elections, calling for new politicians who support the interests of workers to replace the current ones who voted against studying the ordinance. While this sounds good in theory, placing our hope in elections and government reforms is a strategy that repeatedly fails to serve the interests of workers. Charlotte has already experienced “progressive” politicians such as Braxton Winston, who was a city councilor for six years. Winston, who last week, was with SEIU leaders and workers, failed to deliver on what his campaign promises. He even stated last year that he wants to make North Carolina the number one state for business and workers, as if their interests are aligned. Capitalism relies on the domination and exploitation of the working class, by a small handful of people, the ruling class. If there were no exploitation, there would be no capitalism. The United States, as the foremost capitalist nation, survives off exploitation; this is why even the most “progressive” of politicians ultimately always end up serving the interests of the ruling class. This issue is the system, and it is designed to produce exploitation no matter what. Due to this, only the overthrow and destruction of the existing system and its replacement with one in which the working class controls society, also known as socialism, will end exploitation for workers.

SEIU organizers and leaders have been rallying outside the city government building and going to the city council for months. The Working People’s Association has supported workers at these rallies and their calls for improved wages and working conditions. However, it is evident to us that pleading with city officials or running campaigns for candidates who ultimately fail to meet workers’ demands is not a viable strategy for workers. While we in no way support the toothless politicians who sided with billion-dollar companies invested in the airport, even if the City Council had supported the ordinance, they would still face the threat of companies not respecting it, along with the possibility of the state legislature overturning it, or even taking control of the airport altogether. 

Workers do have a weapon against their bosses; however, it’s not with the city government. It’s their ability to come together and withhold their labor in a sustained strike. It is on the backs of their employees’ work that these companies profit ridiculously high sums of money. Workers have the ability to fight back through taking collective action. A successful strike gives workers something that the city government cannot, the ability to negotiate the terms at which they work directly. Demanding and not asking that they receive higher wages and improved working conditions. However, to do this, it will require workers who are currently largely unorganized to get organized into organizations that are capable, ready, and prepared to lead such a fight to take power into their own hands and raise wages and working conditions. History has shown that the established unions, such as those in the AFL-CIO, in particular their leadership, have been unwilling to lead such a fight to it’s rightful conclusion. Giving workers half-baked strikes that fail to meet their demands and selling them out when it comes time to negotiate contracts. Close to a century of bribes, political favors, the purging of “radicals,” and labor laws designed to pacify them have rotten these unions to their core, making them incapable of being a force to achieve workers’ ultimate demands. Workers need to build up rank and file, shopfloor organizations made up of themselves and their coworkers, to take action into their own hands.