skycap

The 14,000 baggage handlers, skycaps, cleaners, security, wheelchair and passenger service workers at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark and members of 32BJ SEIU have been at the forefront in the fight for dignity and respect on the job and the professionalization of vital services at the region's airports.

After a federal jury ordered American Airlines to pay $325,000 in lost tips to skycaps at Boston's airport, one of the plaintiffs dubbed her "Sledgehammer Shannon." When one of her suits caused a local pizzeria to go bankrupt, she bought it, raised wages, and renamed it The Just Crust.

Ranging from skycaps to maintenance specialists, G2 employs more than 3,700 aviation service professionals who work at nearly 40 airports throughout the U.S.

I weave through the lurching line of cars, dodge the skycaps, and leap piles of luggage to push through the rotating door into the comforting bedlam inside.

Of course, from literary fiction I wouldn't expect easy endings, but when a book begins with a character sharing a pamphlet called Four Steps to Salvation with a pair of skycaps, I'm on the lookout for excesses of the true believer's moral certitude or the atheist's cheeky irony.

But what about the added commotion After all, curbside skycaps and terminal ticket clerks have to collect that money and make change.

That information must be the first thing out of your mouth") tipping habits ("Airports: If you use the skycaps to check your luggage at the curb, tip them $1 per bag"), and much more.

At some airports, the passenger is able to check his baggage outside the terminal with airline employees called skycaps. Some airlines charge $2.00 per bag for curbside check-in.

"Besides the charter companies, this also impacts Miami International Airport, from the restaurants to the people who wrap the plastic and the skycaps who carry baggage."

The Quality Standards Program, begun in January 2000, established recruitment, training, compensation, and performance standards for all employers with workers in security areas or performing security functions--including screeners, skycaps, baggage handlers, and boarding agents.

"We are the ones that bus the tables; we are the skycaps and the redcaps," says Ron Owens, a part owner of Arlington, Virginia-based Laughlin, Marinaccio & Owens Advertising, which, among other audiences, markets to African American and Hispanic consumers.