LINTHICUM, Md. — Employees for Spirit Airlines handle customers and their incoming baggage in the air-conditioned terminal at BWI Marshall Airport, but it’s workers contracted through a company called Alliance Ground International or AGI who do the heavy lifting behind the scenes say they have to endure substandard conditions.
A baggage operator, Tyrone Daniels, has worked for the company for six years.
Watch as employees speak on their work experiences at BWI
“Mainly it’s been the maintenance that’s on certain equipment that we have to work with every day,” said Daniels.
Handling bags is a tough enough job without faulty seatbelts and broken-down equipment, much less facing tight deadlines, which allegedly kept one worker from changing his clothing for hours after being sprayed with feces and urine.
“For this company, for AGI, safety is not their most important priority,” said Former OSHA Administrator Jordan Barab, “Their most important priority is avoiding delays no matter what kind of hazards the workers have to face every day doing their jobs.”
Some of the workers’ complaints involve an alleged lack of enforcement of Maryland’s new heat stress standard.
Following the death of a Baltimore public works employee, Maryland established protections for workers in extreme heat that the contracted ground workers claim have virtually been ignored.
“We demand higher standards, real accountability and a safer BWI for everyone,” said State Delegate Veronica Turner of Prince George’s County.
Of the one hundred or so non-union, AGI workers covered in the complaint to Maryland Occupational Safety and Health or MOSH, Daniels is the only one stepping in front of the cameras, but in light of the working conditions, it’s a chance he’s willing to take.
“If I lost my job over that, that’s ridiculous,” said Daniels, “That’s stupid, because I’m the best one they have over there in my opinion, cause I go above and beyond to make my job, to do my job the way I do it. So I don’t just think about my safety. I think about everyone’s safety.”
Alliance Ground International relayed the following statement to WMAR-2 News
