A San Francisco supervisor wants to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour for thousands of workers at San Francisco International Airport by 2030, covering baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, car rental staff and aircraft cabin cleaners. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman's proposal would not touch pay for employees at airport cafes, restaurants and retail shops in the terminals. But Mandelman will leave office at the end of 2026, before the bill can reach the full Board of Supervisors for a vote.
A Veteran Worker's Daily Grind
Nestor Dolde has worked as a wheelchair attendant at SFO for 17 years. He is 74 years old, earns $22.51 an hour, and works two consecutive eight-hour shifts, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He has said he and his family are living paycheck to paycheck. Separately, Dolde told KQED, “I work 16 hours a day, I sleep only 4 hours and then come back to the airport to work.”
Workers like Dolde are employed by subcontractors that airlines hire, not by the airport directly, the same KQED report notes. That outlet also described SFO passenger-service workers' pay as roughly $22 to $24 an hour, with workers asking for $30. SEIU-USWW has been in contract renegotiations with several airport-worker employers for more than a year, and the San Francisco Standard reported that dozens of cabin cleaners, wheelchair attendants and baggage handlers employed by Unifi and ABM have been negotiating with their employers since April 2025.
Mandelman Says Current Pay Is Unreasonable
Mandelman has said the current minimum wage is unreasonable and that the city should set a reasonable one, and that the city must do right by lower-income workers who are essential to airport operations. His office said seven supervisors have signed on as co-sponsors. Because Mandelman is term-limited and leaves office at year's end, Supervisor Matt Dorsey has promised to champion the legislation after he departs.
At a supervisors meeting, Mandelman said the city should press subcontractors to bargain in good faith, telling attendees, per Local News Matters, “we expect good faith bargaining from everyone at the table so that these workers can get a fair contract without further delay.” SFO government affairs manager Dyanna Volek said at that meeting that the airport cannot mandate pay and compensation unless local law requires it. The same report quoted a cleaner at SFO saying staffing had been reduced by nearly 30% even though service demands had not decreased.
Union Leaders Describe a Poverty Crisis
Stephen Boardman has said the proposed wage increase is sorely needed and described a poverty crisis at the airport, according to the Chronicle. He has also said wage negotiations have made little headway because the minimum is set by city ordinance, and that airport worker retention is a safety issue requiring experienced staff. Per a union leader, Sanjay Garla said the ordinance would likely affect more than 10,000 employees of airport subcontractors, most of them contracted by United Airlines.
Companies at SFO have not responded to Mandelman's proposed legislation, the Chronicle reported, and United Airlines did not respond to a request for comment. SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel declined to comment on the proposed wage increase.
A Decades-Old Wage Policy, Revisited
San Francisco set a minimum wage for a subset of safety and security airport workers back in 1999, pegged at $0.50 above the citywide minimum for city-contractor employees, intended to reduce staff turnover. A later study of SFO's broader Quality Standards Program, which set a minimum pay standard of $10 an hour with full benefits or $11.25 without, found that entry-level pay for directly covered workers rose by an average of 33% after the policies took effect, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Turnover fell by an average of 34% among surveyed firms, and some firms even raised pay for jobs not directly covered by the program to compete for workers, the center found.
The Berkeley researchers estimated the Quality Standards Program and living wage ordinance cost employers about $42.7 million a year in direct costs, plus $14.9 million in spillover costs to other workers and employers at SFO. Passing those costs directly to customers, they estimated, would add an average of $1.42 per airline passenger.
Looking South for a Preview
San Francisco isn't alone in weighing a $30 airport wage floor. The Los Angeles City Council passed a similar proposal in 2025 raising minimum pay for Los Angeles International Airport employees to $30 an hour, but the council later approved an 18-month delay after airline and hotel opposition, according to the Los Angeles Times. Under the revised schedule, the wage rises to $25 in July before climbing in steps to $30 in January 2030.
San Francisco city leaders separately announced 12% raises for city employees this year, even as SFO reported generating $14.4 billion in on-site business revenue during fiscal year 2024, along with $319 million in taxes for San Francisco County and $419 million for San Mateo County that same year. Meanwhile, San Mateo County's current minimum wage sits at $17.95 an hour, while the Living Wage Institute estimates a single adult without children needs roughly $38 an hour to cover necessities there. The broader push for $30-an-hour wages extends beyond the airport, too — the San Francisco Standard has described Alameda County as ground zero for that trend, reporting that large Oakland employers could be required to raise their minimum hourly wage to $30 as soon as 2030. Mandelman's proposal excludes minimum-pay changes for airport hotel workers.
