CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Service workers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport filled out paper ballots on a busy Friday before Thanksgiving to decide whether to go on a 24-hour strike during the holidays.
The vote is being taken by employees of ABM and Prospect Airport Services, which provide services like cleaning interiors of the planes, removing trash and escorting passengers in wheelchairs.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport said in a news release they were expecting approximately 1.02 million passengers departing between the Thursday and Monday before the holiday. The exact date of the proposed strike has not been announced.
Dorothy Griffin has been working for ABM for seven years and said she provides equipment for people to clean the cabins of planes between flights.
“We're voting on our strike because we're not treated fairly, we're not paid fairly," said Griffin. "We're not respected in our jobs. We just want higher and more wages and a little respect.”
Griffin said the workers have long complained about the working conditions, saying they don’t always have access to drinking water. Griffin said her wages are so low that she doesn’t have money to pay for repairs to her car.
“If we stop working, the airport is going to stop. The planes can’t go,” Griffin said.
ABM issued a statement saying that it would take steps to minimize disruptions from any demonstrations.
“At ABM, we appreciate the hard work our team members put in every day to support our clients and help keep spaces clean and people healthy," the company said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. "We are aware of the planned demonstration over the busy holiday travel season and are taking steps to minimize any potential service disruption.”
Suzanne Mucklow, a representative for Prospect Airport Services, said in a statement to the AP that they recognize the seriousness of the potential for a strike during the busy holiday travel season.
“Prospect Airport Services is proud to provide higher wages, experienced leadership, and comprehensive benefits to all our employees, including the dedicated team members working at Charlotte Douglas International Airport,” Mucklow said. "We prioritize consistent and transparent communication with all our employees, ensuring they receive fair compensation and robust career advancement opportunities.
Lashonda Barber, who also works for ABM as a trash truck driver, said that company's employees have been asking to be unionized and don't get paid sick or vacation time.
“This is very important and the strike vote will hopefully make a difference,” said Barber.
She said the decision to vote to strike for 24 hours was not an easy one for her financially.
“To lose a day of work, it's going to hurt us in the long run,” Barber said.
Nemiah Sydney, of Atlanta, was traveling through the airport on Friday and said he supported the workers voting to strike, although he hoped it would not affect his travel plans.
“They got families they got to take care of. They gotta fight for a better wage,” Sydney said, calling them the essential workers of the airports.
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Associated Press reporter Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee contributed to this report.
LaQuanda Harvey, a Prospect airport service worker, votes in favor of a strike at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
An union ballot drop box is seen at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
Passengers walks past a union ballot drop box at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
An union ballot drop box is seen at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ education board voted Friday to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools under optional new curriculum that could test boundaries between religion and public classrooms in the U.S.
The material adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, passed in a 8-7 final vote over criticism that the lessons would proselytize to young learners and alienate students of faiths other than Christianity. Supporters argued the Bible is a core feature of American history and that teaching it will enrich lessons.
The vote allows schools in Texas, which has more than 5 million public school students, to begin using the material in kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms as early as next year.
Republican lawmakers celebrated the vote, including Texas' powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who has pledged to pass legislation next year that would follow Louisiana in trying to require schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
In a statement, Gov. Greg Abbott called the vote “a critical step forward to bring students back to the basics of education and provide the best education in the nation.”
Schools are not required to use the material, but those that do would receive extra funding from the state.
In the newly approved kindergarten materials, one lesson on helping one’s neighbor instructs teachers to talk about the Golden Rule using lessons from the Bible. It also instructs the teachers to explain that the Bible is “a collection of ancient texts” and that its different parts are “the core books of the Jewish and Christian religions.”
In a third-grade lesson about the first Thanksgiving, the material directs teachers to discuss how the governor of Plymouth said a prayer and gave a speech that included references to “several passages from the Christian Bible in the book of Psalms.” Teachers are then instructed to tell students the book of Psalms is a collection of songs, poems and hymns “that are used in both Jewish and Christian worship.”
With the new curriculum, Texas would be the first state to introduce Bible lessons in schools in this manner, according to Matthew Patrick Shaw, an assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University. Whether the lesson plans will be considered constitutional is up in the air, he said.
The Texas Education Agency, which oversees public education for more than 5 million students statewide, created its own instruction materials after a law passed in 2023 by the GOP-controlled Legislature required the agency to do so. The lesson plans were publicly released this spring.
“This curriculum is not age-appropriate or subject matter appropriate in the way that it presents these Bible stories,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Children who would read the material, she said, “are simply too young to tell the difference between what is a faith claim and what is a matter of fact.”
Mary Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, a right-leaning advocacy group, said there are “close to 300 common-day phrases that actually come from the Bible” and that students “will benefit from being able to understand a lot of these references.”
More than 100 people testified at a board meeting this week that rung with emotion from parents, teachers and advocates.
One Democrat on the board, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, said the inclusion of religions in addition to Christianity in the materials was not an “adequate attempt to change that bias.”
“It seems to me like it is trying to place a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” she said.
One of the board members, Leslie Recine, is a Republican who was appointed to the board just weeks ago by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to temporarily fill a vacant seat. She voted in favor of the curriculum. Days after her appointment, a Democrat who ran unopposed was elected to fill that same board seat starting next year.
Texas' plans to implement Biblical teachings in public school lesson plans is the latest effort by Republican-controlled states to bring religion into the classroom.
In Louisiana, a law to place the Ten Commandments in all public classrooms was blocked by a federal judge earlier this month. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the bill into law in June, prompting a group of Louisiana public school parents of different faiths to sue.
In Oklahoma, the state's top education official has tried to incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for children in fifth through 12th grades. A group of teachers and parents recently filed a lawsuit to stop the Republican state superintendent's plan and his efforts to spend $3 million to purchase Bibles for public schools.
LaFleur reported from Dallas. Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed. Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
FILE - Notebooks are stacked on desks in a classroom at A.G. Hilliard Elementary School, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
FILE - A Texas flag is displayed in an elementary school in Murphy, Texas, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
