Food servers, bartenders, and other restaurant staff at Tampa International Airport who offer respite to more than 20 million passengers traveling through the airport annually are calling on their employer—one of the airport’s contractors—to allow them a fair process to organize a union.
The restaurant workers are technically employed by SSP America, an airport contractor that operates several popular eateries at Tampa International, such as Hard Rock Cafe, Buddy Brew, Ulele, and Ducky’s, in addition to restaurants at 56 other airports in the U.S., Canada, and Brazil.
This morning, SPP America told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that it respects its employees rights under the National Labor Relations Act, and will not interfere with any organizing activity.
“Also, the union has agreed to our offer to discuss labor peace,” the rep added after being asked for comment on this story.
At several of these other airports, including the Orlando International Airport, workers employed by the same contractor, SSP, are already unionized. They earn higher wages for the same jobs that workers do in Tampa, receive better benefits, and have other protections and perks that workers there have collectively negotiated into a contract.
For instance, more stable scheduling and hours. A free meal on-shift. Plus, at least in Orlando, a selection of health insurance plans that are mostly paid for by their employer,including plans that offer coverage for products particularly helpful for hospitality workers, such as free orthotics—specialized shoe inserts—for servers who are on their feet all day.
“If the company has afforded the workers in Orlando these opportunities, I think it’s only fair that they should offer the same to their employees in Tampa,” said Paul Lipps-Lee, a server at Ducky’s for almost four years.
Lipps-Lee, a former bar manager at the American Legion in Seminole Heights, has worked in hospitality all his life, and at 48 years-old, and has never been a union member. Most of Florida’s workforce—roughly 94%—don’t have union representation either.
But for him, the fight to organize a union at TPA is, at its heart, simply about “fairness.”
“You feel like a second-class citizen,” he said, speaking on the phone with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Several of his coworkers at the airport’s Hard Rock Cafe, who are similarly involved in the effort to organize a union—despite having no former experience with union membership themselves—agreed.
“We want a better job, security, and protection for our employees, because we are not protected at all,” said Jessica Gonzalez, a server at Hard Rock Cafe who works six-hour shifts,typically in the afternoons. She earns minimum wage ($10.98/hour) plus tips. “We are the ones that make money for SSP America,” she said.
The SSP Group, her employer’s U.K.-based parent company, reported $4.8 billion in revenue last year, according to Forbes, with an operating profit of $298 million. Workers at TPA, employed by SSP America, are seeking to organize a union with Unite Here Local 362, an Orlando-based hospitality workers’ union that already represents SSP restaurant workers at Orlando International Airport. A union rep told CL they’ve had a good working relationship with SSP, historically.
Under the union’s new 49-page contract with SSP’s Orlando airport operations, bussers and cashiers earn $19.30 an hour—roughly $5 more than the $14 hourly rate paid to servers at Tampa International.
Workers in Orlando also have access to a pension plan—almost unheard of for non-union hospitality jobs—in addition to paid parental leave, the right to speak in the language of their choosing when not in the presence of customers, and job protections for immigrant workers.
The right to a fair process
Immigrants make up nearly 30% of the hospitality workforce in Florida, and at Tampa International Airport, many of the SSP workers are migrants from Venezuela or Cuba.
Under the Trump administration’s commitment to conduct the “largest deportation operation in American history,” several workers told CL that their coworkers are afraid to go through a union election process, if it would mean being in the same room with federal officials.
Just last month in a piece titled “To Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers,” The New York Times checked in with the plight of a Tampa mother, Heidy Sánchez, who was separated from her infant daughter after going to her routine appointment at the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We’re just claiming our rights, so I don’t have any fear,” said Gonzalez, who lawfully immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba in 2023. “But I know some of my coworkers don’t want to do it because they’re scared. They don’t want to be fired.”
It’s unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act for an employer to coerce or retaliate against immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, for organizing a union. This hasn’t, however, stopped some employers from doing so, by for instance threatening termination, cuts to hours, or even deportation for unionizing.
“They fear about losing what they have,” said Rodolfo Alejandro Yepej Garcia, a server at Hard Rock Cafe and an immigrant who, like many of his coworkers, is lawfully working in the U.S. on a visa.
“A lot of our Spanish-speaking coworkers … with everything that’s happening in the news today, in the political climate today, I feel like they’re almost afraid,” added Cameron Waterhouse, a server of 10 years at Hard Rock Cafe. “They feel like, if they do speak up, if they do go to an election, what is that going to mean for them? Are they going to have ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] knocking on their door saying, ‘Hey, we heard you voted. Let’s see some identifications.”
Union organizers say that getting confirmation from SSP that they will stay neutral, and allow a fair process for workers to organize, would help alleviate concerns of retaliation.
“All we’re asking is for the same fairness that was given to Orlando, and the same process, which is for the management to accept true neutrality and stay out of this,” said Lipps-Lee.
Federal labor law allows for workers to organize a union in one of two ways: by voting to unionize through an election—a process that can take months and allow time for the employer to intimidate or pressure workers—or by getting a majority of the workforce to sign cards in support of unionization and present those to the employer. If the employer is satisfied and able to verify that a majority of the workers want to form a union, the employer can grant what is known as voluntary union recognition.
This is how SSP workers at Orlando International Airport formed a union more than a decade ago, according to a union rep. And this is generally the preferred option for workers, so they don’t have to unnecessarily undergo a drawn-out process, or potentially face intimidation from their employer that would affect their vote.
First steps
One step in the process of getting voluntary union recognition is to ask for a neutrality agreement from the employer, also known as a labor peace agreement. This is, essentially, a commitment from the employer to allow a fair process for workers to organize a union, should they wish to do so. Without this show of neutrality, an employer can force workers to go through an election—a process that can take months.
Lipps-Lee, the Ducky’s server, told CL that he helped organize a delegation of about a dozen SSP workers a couple of months ago who delivered a petition to their manager’s office,with an ask for neutrality, along with signed cards from about half of the 155 workers in support of unionization.
According to Lipps-Lee, however, it didn’t go well. He said the company started sending emails to workers about unionization that he worried would instill fear and uncertainty in his coworkers. Copies of flyers and text from these emails, shown to CL, make assertions about unionization and the negotiations process that are, to put it mildly, less than inspiring, arguing that there are no guarantees in the process.
“While we are committed to providing you with truthful and accurate information, we are not allowed to make promises. The union is not subject to the same restrictions,” one email read, according to Lipps-Lee. “Instead, they are free to promise you the world, but are unable to guarantee that they can follow through on these promises.”
The company also argues in these communications that they wish to “preserve the right” of workers to vote in a union election, even if a majority of workers have already signed cards in support of the union and don’t want to go through an election process.
For Lipps-Lee, and other workers CL spoke to, the union contracts that SSP has negotiated with its workers at other airports is enough to convince them they can do better than what they’re currently afforded without a union.
“Why do I have to pay $100,$200, $400 a month for my [health] insurance when Orlando is not?” said Lipps-Lee, speaking of the unionized Orlando airport employees.
Waterhouse, the Hard Rock Cafe server, moved to Tampa from Orlando after graduating from the University of Central Florida roughly a decade ago, and was similarly perplexed. “I know what it’s like to be in Orlando, and I know what it’s like to be in Tampa. And why are we being treated differently than our coworkers in another area?” he asked. “That’s literally just a stone’s throw—it’s a hop, skip and a jump.”
Tampa is expensive
Both Florida metros—Tampa Bay and Orlando—are costly to live in and were both affected by double-digit rent hikes after COVID-era eviction moratoriums expired. In Tampa, one study found that a single adult would need to make an annual salary of $100,963 or an hourly wage of $48.54 to comfortably afford the city.
Another study, from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, found that a Tampa Bay renter would need to make at least $32.42 an hour to afford the average one-bedroom apartment, or roughly $67,440 per year.
Garcia, meanwhile, said he hasn’t been to a doctor in two years because he can’t afford it.
Waterhouse said that more consistent hours and a free, on-shift meal—something that can be guaranteed in a union contract—would also go far.
“That can literally be life changing for some people, for some of the people who—not even talking about not getting paid fairly—but for those people who are struggling just to make it,” he said.
Workers said they feel like they’re held back by this double standard. That, and the collective voice they can have as a union, is why they’re organizing with Unite Here.
“I really do believe that bringing everybody together and standing up for the rights that we deserve is crucial,” Waterhouse affirmed.
The rep for SSP America told CL that the company is “committed to operating ethically, legally, and in full compliance with labor laws and airport contractual requirements,” while mentioning SSP’s long-running open‑door policy for employees who want to share concerns.
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This article appears in Jan. 29 – Feb. 04.