CHARLOTTE, NC – Airport Workers in the SEIU at Charlotte Douglas International are back to work without any changes to their pay. Airport workers walked off the job for 24 hours to send a message to their employer to demand higher wages. Laura Kelly works at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport moving passengers using wheelchairs and escorting children traveling alone. “The most stress is due to us being getting to a gate and having to go all the way across the airport to another gate, within a specific amount of time,” Kelly said. Kelly lives in an extended stay hotel off Independence Boulevard. She says that’s all she can afford because she’s paid between $12 and $14 dollars an hour for the work. She says the low wages force her to make tough choices. “We can’t decide, oh, i’m going to get insurance, but i’m not going to have a roof over my head. Or do I take the insurance and not have food to feed my kids?” Kelly asked. She’s not alone. Hundreds of others workers with Service Employees International Union are demanding what they call a living wage. Workers who clean the planes and facilites work for ABM. The workers who move passengers throughout the airport and escort unaccompanied minors work for Prospect Airport Services. Union officials say most workers are paid somewhere between $12 and $19 an hour. “We need to be paying no less than 18 to $20 an hour,” Kelly said. During the busiest travel season of the year workers contracted by ABM Industries and Prospect Airport Services walked off the job for a one day strike to organize a plan of action for their second time this year. “We’re not going to beg. We’re not going to plead. We are demanding and that’s why we walked out,” Niecy Brown from SEIU Workers United NC said. “If we have to walk out again, we will do just that.” At this time ABM and Prospect have not agreed to sit down with union representatives. “We’re not stopping. We’re going to fight until these workers get justice and the company to comes to the table, give workers wages that they can live,” Brown said. As workers go back to the job, they’re still unsure how to make ends meet during the holiday season. “We’re taking these people from gate to gate to get to see their families. But most of us don’t even know if we’re going to be able to be with our families for the holidays, or even have a place to have a holiday dinner,” Kelly said. ABM and Prospect did not return emails from WCCB asking what it would take for the companies to agree to sit down with union representatives to hear the concerns about wages and working conditions.