Air Safety on the Cheap

[xchrom]

http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-01-04/news/airport-security-minimum-wage/


Photograph: Diana Eliazov
Prince Jackson is a security guard at JFK's Delta terminals, where his employer, Air Serv, pays him $8 an hour.

Prince Jackson's days usually go like this: He gets off work at 6:30 in the morning, gets on the bus, and is home by 7:30 a.m. This time of year, the sun is just rising over Ozone Park as he opens the front gate of the house where he lives and walks around to a back door that leads down to the basement.

Jackson goes down a flight to the room he rents from the family upstairs. The room is small—about seven feet by eight feet—just enough space for his mattress, a television, and a dresser. There aren't any windows. On the wall is a picture of Jackson's son, a college student he doesn't get to see very much. The family upstairs charges Jackson $125 a week for the room, but in the past year, he has fallen behind.

Jackson has something to eat and is asleep by 9 a.m. He'll wake up around 3 and prepare a dinner to take to work. Most of his meals come from the food pantry at his church, where he volunteers. After he makes dinner, Jackson will nap some more, or maybe watch TV. At 8 p.m., he'll get up, shower, and put on his uniform. By 9, he's on Sutphin Boulevard and waiting for the number 6 bus.

An hour later, Jackson is at work, at Delta's two terminals at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he's a security guard. Jackson makes sure no one enters the gate area without passing through the Transportation Security Administration screening checkpoints. He ensures no one unauthorized exits the access doors to the tarmac. He guards the employee entrance and makes sure only properly accredited staff come in. He responds to alarms. Charged with keeping the terminals safe, Jackson is an integral part of aviation security at JFK.

[Zalatix]

1. That's a bribe just waiting to happen.

Take someone less scrupulous than him, offer him five times his usual pay to let some s$%t slip through, and what are the odds that they'll take it? Human nature, folks, human nature.

That's why you pay your security well: so someone else doesn't pay them better to leave you wide open for a wedgie.

[Ezlivin]

2. We're Number One!

How people can continue to believe that lie is amazing.

This man is doing his best to survive legally in this economic climate.

He's a paragon of virtue compared to nearly anyone on Wall Street. Yet look how he lives.

There is a reckoning coming in this country.

[rgbecker]

3. $8.00 x 40 = $320 a week.

$125/ week for a room in the basement? Add bus fare, food and a pair of shoes....

[RC]

4. Taxes, Social Security and Medicare.

That's not living, that is surviving.