File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

OPEN LETTER TO YKA

Kamloops Airport screeners, management spar over additional cleaning

Mar 27, 2020 | 1:33 PM

KAMLOOPS — The United Steelworkers Local 1-417, which represents security screening personnel at the Kamloops Airport, has concerns the airport is not doing enough to contain the spread of COVID-19.

In a letter to the Kamloops Airport operations manager Ed Ratuski, President of USW 1-417 Marty Gibbons says the airport is allowing unrestricted access to the main terminal, and according to employees, no additional cleaning measures are taking place.

“Our concern with the airport is we haven’t been able to secure a copy of their exposure control plan. The screeners are phoning me and talking to me regularly, advising me they’re not seeing extra cleaners. There’s also very little control over who’s entering the terminal, and that has us concerned,” noted Gibbons.

Gibbons says with confirmed COVID-19 cases coming through the airport — as highlighted by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control with an infected person on a Calgary to Kamloops flight on Saturday evening — the security screeners are at risk.

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Gibbons says adding to the frustration is not knowing who the authority is in this situation. The airport screeners work under the company G4S, whose landlord is the Kamloops Airport Authority.

“There are levels of bureaucracy that we’ve been trying to work through to ensure our workers are safe,” noted Gibbons. “Our employer (G4S), their landlord is Ed, and Ed needs to do his job making sure the proper controls are in place, not just to protect these workers but the communities as well. It’s extremely frustrating.”

Ratuski says YKA management has drastically increased cleaning around the terminal since the COVID-19 outbreak ramped up a couple of weeks ago.

“(We are) wiping down high-touch places within the terminal with our own janitorial staff,” noted Ratuski. “Just generally, the general instructions of the public health authorities, in terms of washing hands, getting that message out to our employee groups and informing people about what’s going on on-site.”

Gibbons responded by saying the employees “aren’t seeing that. The feedback I’m getting from the screeners, who are there all the time when the airport’s open, have advised me that’s not happening. They have not seen any additional cleaning.”

Gibbons says there should also be people screening passengers before they enter the terminal to check for any COVID-19 symptoms.

“If we’re having to screen out potentially infected people at the checkpoint, we have failed because they’ve already gone through the airport, they’ve gone through the staff at the ticket counter, and now they’ve come right into the building. We want our landlord, which is the airport, to provide what they’re doing in writing because we’re not seeing it.”

In terms of limiting access at the terminal, Ratuski says the airport is taking the steps now to put those measures into place. He notes the number of people coming through the terminal has dropped off in the last week with the Canadian border closed to non-essential travel.

“We are in the process, as the commercial flights drop off, of restricting certain areas of the terminal to ensure the passengers flow in and out in a more efficient manner, rather than wandering out parts of the terminal that no longer need to be accessible at this point,” Ratuski said.

The Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority (CATSA), which oversees all airport screening employees across the country, has not responded to CFJC Today.