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Old 11-13-2011, 09:17 PM
 
Location: East Chicago, IN
3,100 posts, read 3,287,241 times
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Unless it's a job you honestly want for yourself, it really shouldn't bug you all that much. How many of us on here are clamoring to be baggage handlers?
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Old 11-13-2011, 09:18 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HurricaneDC View Post
I mean, I don't think you'll be buying a BMW any time soon as an airport luggage handler. I'm pretty sure even TSA screeners make like $10/hr.

What probably happened as well (especially with BWI, DCA and IAD since the DC area has a sizable African population) is that a few Africans came here, got jobs at the airports, found them to be decent jobs and told their family back home. Word gets out and before you know it everyone in their social network wants to come to America and get that kind of job since they heard it was a decent job (and probably a lot better than whatever they had going on back home).
DC? Ever notice the parking garage workers in D.C?

And when I was growing up, folks from the city always talked about how well those airport (did I get it right? I can be taught) jobs paid relative to the same job outside the airport.
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Old 11-13-2011, 09:19 PM
 
2,674 posts, read 4,374,594 times
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Originally Posted by tb4000 View Post
Unless it's a job you honestly want for yourself, it really shouldn't bug you all that much. How many of us on here are clamoring to be baggage handlers?
Well I used to work a wine cart at Ravenna...

But I really didn't mean the question to come off as conspiracy theorist at all. There are just strange things in life. I had way too many layovers in too short a period of time.
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Old 11-13-2011, 09:31 PM
 
Location: Fort Worth, TX
9,394 posts, read 15,644,882 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyDay View Post
DC? Ever notice the parking garage workers in D.C?

And when I was growing up, folks from the city always talked about how well those airport (did I get it right? I can be taught) jobs paid relative to the same job outside the airport.
I honestly have no idea about the pay for airport jobs. I just can't imagine that it's that great. Decent for what it is? Sure, but again you're probably not gonna be buying a BMW with the money (unless you want to live in a shack).

And yeah, about the parking workers, one of the biggest parking management companies in the area (U Street Parking) was started by an Ethiopian immigrant:

Young parking lot czar is the face of Ethiopian success in the D.C. area
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Old 11-13-2011, 09:39 PM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,743,919 times
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I have never noticed that, but I admit that I haven't been to many airports. The ones I have been to though, Flint MI, Detroit MI, Chicago Midway, Toledo OH and Atlanta GA as well as some international airports (don't count them though) didn't have many African immigrants working there at all.

I live in Atlanta and my co-worker has a relative who is a supervisor at TSA. TSA agents make about $14-$18 an hour here to start so it is a decent paying job that many people want to have. None of the screeners I have come in contact with here in Atlanta have a foreign accent.

I also used to work at the airport here in Atlanta, I'm black but not from Africa. All of my co-workers on the concourse I worked on were American as well. I do remember one African immigrant when I worked for the parking company at the airport around 2001/2002. He was one of our staff of around 30 inventory clerks who went around inventorying the cars in the parking lots here in Atlanta. All the rest of us were plain old black Americans even our managers and supervisors.
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Old 11-13-2011, 09:47 PM
 
Location: San Antonio Texas
11,431 posts, read 18,925,690 times
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Originally Posted by GreyDay View Post
Not to be inflammatory- but it seems (and I travel quite a bit) that there is a disproportionately large portion of Africans (ethiopian, somalian, etc) working at many airports. Again my sample may be skewed but it's a pretty big sample.

Is there a political reason perhaps that foreign born or recent immigrants get a pipeline into Airport employment?
I've noticed that nearly all of the taxi cab drivers in San diego, calif are north african too. It's like they all tell each other to work there. On my last trip there, I noticed that the cabs (all with individual names) had changed their names to more "american sounding" names instead of their homeland names that they had before like "akbar" taxi. I don't like them too much because they generally are not friendly/talkative and I've read so much about their rigid religious expectations about their customers.
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Old 11-13-2011, 09:48 PM
 
Location: Rational World Park
4,991 posts, read 4,488,452 times
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It's the same reason "all" the cleaning staff at the airport are spanish and "all" the cab drivers are middle eastern, they keep jobs in the family. The companies that have contracts with the airports like to hire people on the cheap typically with no benefits. You know, the American way. No better prospective employee than an immigrant with limited education. They're much easier to take advantage of which is important to many employers.
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Old 11-13-2011, 10:04 PM
 
Location: Limbo
6,514 posts, read 7,511,302 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyDay View Post
Not to be inflammatory- but it seems (and I travel quite a bit) that there is a disproportionately large portion of Africans (ethiopian, somalian, etc) working at many airports. Again my sample may be skewed but it's a pretty big sample.

Is there a political reason perhaps that foreign born or recent immigrants get a pipeline into Airport employment?
At MSP, there is a massive Somali workforce inside the terminals. Actually, it is extremely difficult to be successful at a job there because you don't hear English over the radio, which makes it very difficult to communicate.

I have wondered the same myself.
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Old 11-13-2011, 10:04 PM
 
12,436 posts, read 11,903,733 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyDay View Post
Not to be inflammatory- but it seems (and I travel quite a bit) that there is a disproportionately large portion of Africans (ethiopian, somalian, etc) working at many airports. Again my sample may be skewed but it's a pretty big sample.

Is there a political reason perhaps that foreign born or recent immigrants get a pipeline into Airport employment?
A couple of reasons. You are probably seeing more ethiopians than somalians. Most ethiopians that are in the U.S. are of a higher class than those that are in Ethiopia. It takes money to get to the U.S. and Ethiopia is very poor so they would have had to been a higher class just to get here. The higher classes in Ethiopia feel they are above manuel labor so they will take jobs that they do not consider manual labor such as working at the parking lot booths etc.

Also, most ethiopians did not come here alone. They usually have one come and then they bring the remaining family and they build a network for getting jobs. You will see them at airports, driving taxis, and at parking garages in larger cities.

Ethiopians of the higher class are very easy to recognize. They have more of a European type nose and their hair is more curly. That is because they are mixed with Italian who colonized Ethiopia. Ethiopians of the upper class usually assimilate into American society very well. Many second and some first generation Ethiopians end up in professional jobs such as doctors and engineers. They are almost always muslim. There are Christian Ethiopians, but they are not in the higher classes.
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Old 11-13-2011, 10:10 PM
 
7,237 posts, read 12,690,336 times
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Oh my, you actually spun your silly post into a thread.

Wow!!!
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