ON MAY DAY, SEIU TEXAS LAUNCHES “$25 BY 30” CAMPAIGN TO RAISE WAGES FOR AIRPORT AND CITY CONTRACTED WORKERS

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ON MAY DAY, SEIU TEXAS LAUNCHES “$25 BY 30” CAMPAIGN TO RAISE WAGES FOR AIRPORT AND CITY CONTRACTED WORKERS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 1, 2026

Houston – SEIU Texas joined calls from across Houston for an independent investigation and the release of all evidence surrounding the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at the hands of immigration agents in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood. Araujo was shot on the morning of Tuesday, July 7th.

 

Frontline service work in Houston airports, at the GRB, and in city-contracted security is overwhelmingly staffed by Black and Brown workers, many of them women. The low wages in these industries add to income inequality and dizzying poverty rates in Houston. As of now, one in five Houstonians live in poverty, making Houston’s poverty rate the highest among the nation’s 25 most populous cities.

“Houston has the chance to set a new standard,” said Elsa Flores, president of SEIU Texas, “that lifts up Black women, Hispanic women, and all those who do this work, and gives them the opportunity to raise their families with dignity. Right now, too many workers are facing eviction, and worrying about how they can afford gas and food.”

“My paycheck doesn’t stretch to cover rent, bills and daycare for my grandson, so now we’re facing eviction. I don’t know where we’re going to live,” said Augusta Dillon, a Tool-Room Agent at IAH Airport. “We need a salary that lets us put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.”

“By the time I pay all my bills and my rent, I’m broke. I have to ask my aunt if I can come over for dinner, or my uncle to fix me a care package so I can have food to eat,” said Sean Carr, security officer at the McGovern-Stella Link Regional Library. “This check is not enough. We need $25 an hour.”

“We can’t afford food or clothes for my granddaughters, who rely on us. It breaks my heart when they open the refrigerator and tell me “Grandma, there’s no food,” said Nora De Luna, who cleans Jones Hall. “We can’t live like this.”

BACKGROUND:

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) launched the “Fight for $15” campaign nationally in 2012 to win a living wage for workers across the country. Since then, 29 states and nearly five dozen cities and counties have raised their wage floors. In 2022, Mayor Sylvester Turner raised wages for city-contracted workers to at least $15 an hour by 2023.

However, inflation has continued to skyrocket and Houstonians are struggling to survive. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single person in Houston needs to make $22.19 just to survive and a family of 4 with both parents working outside the home would need each parent to make at least $25 an hour.

While these poverty wages have a devastating impact on individual workers, they also ripple through whole communities. As of 2023, Black households in Harris County earn 96% less than white households and women earn just 84 cents for every dollar that a man makes. That racial wealth gap narrowed by only 5 percentage points between 2010 and 2023. SEIU Texas hopes to utilize union power through the “$25 by 30” campaign to win a path to $25 an hour for workers across Texas by 2030.