Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2 said its 233 YVR members walked off the job on Dec. 19 and have been without a contract since the end of September.
Negotiations with the workers’ employer, Alpine Building Maintenance, broke down over wages, which are not keeping up with the rising cost of living, SEIU Local 2 said in a news release on Monday.
Shauna MacDonald, a principal of Brookline Public Relations and Alpine Building Maintenance’s spokesperson, was not immediately available for comment, nor was the airport, said Paul Michna, a spokesperson for YVR.
The union said the cleaners have rallied since Dec. 20 in the airport’s designated demonstration area, Chester Johnson Park, and plan to move their picket line on Tuesday at 9 a.m. PT.
Janitors who clean Vancouver’s international airport have gone on strike. They walked off the job just over an hour ago. We find out what’s happening at YVR.
The union did not say where they planned to move it but asked airport workers not to cross their picket lines.
Standing in front of a union rally at Chester Johnson Park Monday, midnight-shift cleaner Goody Gozun said he hopes management realizes the janitors’ value as washrooms and hallways become increasingly dirtier.
“We need a fair wage,” he said, adding a living wage in Vancouver is about $27 per hour. “Living here, things are expensive. [Janitors] are paying bills, they’re paying rents, their gas, their food. They have their family to feed. That’s why we have no choice but to strike.”
According to SEIU Local 2, its members clean most of the airport, including terminals, bathrooms, hallways, the exterior, and airport operations facilities on both sides of security checkpoints.
Jet fuel workers still on strike
Meanwhile, 11 workers who handle jet fuel at YVR are also on strike.
The workers are one of several ways airlines deliver fuel, a Vancouver Airport Authority spokesperson told CBC News earlier this month.
The jet fuel workers, represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 502, have been on strike since Dec. 12.
They unionized this summer and are still negotiating their first collective agreement with the workers’ employer, SGS Canada.
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