Two weeks after San Francisco International Airport released a report boasting $85 billion in regional economic impact, the cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants who make those numbers possible remain stuck in 14 months of stalled contract talks — earning as little as $22 an hour while their employer and the city-owned airport both say the dispute isn't their concern.

SFO is not a private company. It is a department of the City and County of San Francisco, governed by a five-member Airport Commission appointed by the Mayor. The Commission is the airport's policy-making body. But when ground workers at contracted companies Unifi and ABM — the people who clean cabins, push wheelchairs, and haul bags for every airline operating out of SFO — asked last year for a raise to $30 an hour, neither the contractors nor the city said yes. Now, 14 months into stalled negotiations, the city's position is simply: not our fight. That's a choice San Francisco made. Los Angeles made a different one.

The contract fight has been grinding since April 2025. Dozens of workers employed by Unifi and ABM — two of the largest ground-services companies at SFO — have been in negotiations with their employers, represented by SEIU United Service Workers West. Their demand: a minimum wage of $30 an hour, along with expanded sick leave, better benefits, and staffing relief. The current floor under their contract sits between $22.04 and $22.79. Progress, according to people close to the talks, has stalled.

The human cost of that stall was documented this week by the SF Standard, which spent a month speaking with five ground workers. The picture that emerged is of a workforce living at the edge of what's sustainable. Nestor Dolde, 74, a wheelchair attendant who has worked at SFO for nearly 17 years, runs a double shift most days — clocking in at 5:30 a.m. and arriving home near midnight, sleeping four hours before starting again. He counts roughly 40,000 steps in a double. On international flights, his team of 15 to 17 must shuttle scores of wheelchair passengers one at a time through customs, baggage, and ground transport. When passengers can't walk, workers carry them. "You cannot assess what sickness they have," Dolde told the Standard. "I sacrifice myself for my family," he said of why he keeps going.

Sonia Fernandez Trujillo, a lead cabin cleaner at Unifi, described a crew handling between 150 and 250 flights per day, with two to five minutes to clean each cabin before the next departure. Meal breaks get radioed away. "The planners say, 'No lunch right now — there's another flight,'" she said through a translator. Workers who can't afford cars sometimes sleep in the terminal after missing the last BART train. Fernandez Trujillo told the Standard that her father died in Colombia while she was working in San Francisco — she hasn't been back since arriving five years ago.

Into this backdrop, SFO dropped a press release on June 10. Airport Director Mike Nakormkhet called the airport "a powerful economic engine for our region, supporting job creation, generating income, and driving visitor spending." The numbers he cited: $14.4 billion in on-airport business revenues, more than 42,000 airport jobs, and nearly $85 billion in total regional economic impact. The press release did not mention the stalled contract negotiations. It made no reference to the wage floor that will determine whether those 42,000 jobs can support a life in the Bay Area.

When the SF Standard asked SFO about the talks, a spokesperson said the airport "does not comment on ongoing contract negotiations," deferring to "the employer and union." That answer might make sense for a private landlord. SFO is a city department, overseen by a Commission — currently led by President Malcolm Yeung, with members Susan Leal, Jose Fuentes Almanza, Mark Buell, and Nancy Tung, all mayoral appointees — that the City Charter designates as the airport's primary policy-making body. None of the commissioners have issued a public statement on the stalled talks.

The contrast with Los Angeles is instructive. In December 2024, the LA City Council voted to mandate a $30-per-hour minimum wage for hotel and LAX airport workers, phased in by 2028 — the exact wage floor SFO's ground workers are asking for. LA used its authority as an airport owner to set a floor. San Francisco's equivalent body has declined to use theirs.

Unifi and ABM have not responded to requests for comment. The union has not announced a strike vote or formal action. But Dolde, who sits on the union's executive board, put the contradiction plainly to the Standard: "The airlines are making money because of the passengers. But they don't want to provide more money to the employees."

SFO's Airport Commission holds regular public meetings; members of the public can address commissioners directly. Whether the city's appointees will engage on a dispute playing out under their own roof — at an airport they declared, just weeks ago, to be a gift to the region — is an open question. The workers cleaning the cabins would like an answer.