Airport Screener Hopefuls
Flock to Downtown Job Fair

SAN FRANCISCO —Thousands of area residents flocked to a job fair at the Moscone Center today in hopes of nabbing work as security screeners under a new pilot program at San Francisco International Airport. Most of the new screeners—1,100 of whom will be hired in the next three weeks—will replace current employees who no longer qualify for the positions under stringent new federal guidelines requiring U.S. citizenship.

“We’re going to have to comply with [the guidelines] whether we like it or not,” San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown told applicants, adding that the new positions will not only pay more than before but will offer greater benefits and job security. New screeners will earn $15 an hour during the roughly 110 hours of training and $16.88 thereafter. Previous entry-level airport screeners pocketed just $10.50 an hour.

Ed Gomez, SFO federal security director, said candidate selection will be rigorous. He said that although most candidates were expected to pass the initial screening held today, next week’s four-hour screenings will likely result in a pass rate of just 50 percent.

“The standards are high,” he told applicants. “You’re going to face stiff challenges, but it’s a serious job and we want serious individuals.”

The Transportation and Aviation Security Act, passed by Congress last year two months after the September 11 terror attacks, stipulates not only that airport screeners must be U.S. citizens but that they also speak fluent English and hold the equivalent of a high school diploma. The Act, which mandates compliance by Nov. 19, proved controversial across the nation but especially so in the Bay Area, where more than 75 percent of current airport screeners at the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose airports are Filipino immigrants, most of whom are legal residents but not citizens.

Airport director John Martin said that English classes and other services have been offered to its workers to help them qualify.

“Shortly after the passage the airport started a program for screeners to prepare their citizenship applications and shepherd them through the IRS,” he said, adding that 57 of them have become U.S. citizens this year.

Mayor Brown, who called the situation “traumatic” in light of all the workers forced out of their jobs, said a support system is in place to help displaced workers find new jobs.

“We will make sure there is some form of work for everyone,” he said.

But Angela Angel of Oakland-based Filipino Civil Rights Advocates refutes Brown’s claim.

“There haven’t been specific efforts to help them out,” she said, adding that the extent of the employment assistance provided to disqualified screeners has been in the form of job fair fliers.

Gloria Araniba and Ileana Martinez, Salvadoran natives living in the South Bay, think the new guidelines are fair.

“We live in the U.S. and we must speak English—especially in this position,” said Araniba. “We’re talking about security.”

Most applicants, however, shrugged off the issue. Billy Brown, a 48-year-old Berkeley resident who saw an ad for the job fair in The Oakland Tribune, was simply glad for the opportunity.

“If you can read that newspaper and come here today you’ve got a door opening for you, and that door’s going to lead to another door,” the former UC Berkeley janitor said while waiting in line to complete an online application form.

“We’re reaching out to the demographic make-up of San Francisco,” said Ed McDonald, president of Covenant Aviation Security, a Hinsdale, IL-based private company that won the contract to carry out the two-year pilot program.
The program, being rolled out in five of the nation’s 429 commercial airports, will test the plausibility of private companies providing standardized security services under the Act.

“San Francisco International Airport is a gateway and I want people traveling there to see the variety of cultures that represent San Francisco,” McDonald said.

Today’s job fair attracted a wide variety of races and ethnicities. Candidates of every physical description sipped coffee and canned soft drinks amidst the aroma of freshly popped popcorn and strains of live jazz music from a four-piece band.

Yet some applicants think a bit more outreach is still needed. Outside the Moscone Center, Billy Brown, the Berkeley resident, pointed to a truck on the corner carrying a billboard advertising the job fair.

“It’s been going around downtown,” he said. “But those people already have jobs. What he needs to be doing is driving around in Hunter’s Point or going down Fillmore.”