Denver International Airport Workers Will Ask Voters for a $15 Minimum Wage

Teresita Felix works at Denver International Airport in a catering kitchen run by United Airlines, but she earns so little, she says, that she's forced to live in a house in Aurora with twenty of her relatives, including seven children.

“I cannot afford to live on my own in Denver,” Felix says.

But Felix hopes her financial prospects will change with a new effort to raise airport workers' minimum wage to $15 an hour. Today, August 23, Felix was among dozens of airport employees who gathered in front of the Denver City and County Building to announce a signature-gathering effort that, if successful, would put the Denver Airport Minimum Wage initiative on the May 2019 citywide ballot. The ballot measure would raise the minimum wage of airport workers to $15 dollars by 2021.

Organizers and supporters of the ballot initiative — including UNITE HERE Local 23, the Denver Area Labor Federation, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and Together Colorado — point out how DIA is thriving and will benefit from billions in additional investments during the coming years, while workers employed by some companies operating at the airport make just over $10 an hour.

“DIA is the biggest economic driver in the state...and it's more successful than ever,” UNITE HERE's chapter president, Kevin Abels, announced from a podium at the City and County Building this morning. “Unfortunately, that's not the case for workers. We're here to say Denver and DIA can and must do better.”

Read more: https://www.westword.com/news/workers-at-the-denver-international-airport-push-for-15-minimum-wage-ballot-initiative-in-may-2019-10699059