Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan joined in a protest at a Detroit airport, but her solidarity with the workers ended when they were arrested while she was not.
Tlaib took part in a Friday protest at Detroit Metro Airport in which catering service workers protested outside the Delta airlines terminal in a demand for higher wages, according to WXYZ.
? BREAKING ? @RashidaTlaib just got arrested with protesting airline catering workers outside @Delta terminal at Detroit Metro Airport.
Workers are done with unaffordable health care and poverty wages—and aren’t giving up until they get the good jobs we deserve.#1job pic.twitter.com/RzwHX6Gy3j
— Diana Hussein ?? (@heyadiana) February 14, 2020
Workers blocked an access road. Tlaib, who has a history of controversial public statements, joined the workers who were later arrested in blocking the road, and rode with them to the police station after their arrest, but she was not charged, according to the Detroit News.
That fact caused some consternation on Twitter.
If she wasn’t arrested for doing the same thing then the real question is why were they then? Not why wasn’t she
— JK (@Kruzinsolow) February 15, 2020
@RashidaTlaib @attorneygeneral@realDonaldTrump
I think the police should have arrested you for being involved in the protest. We feel that Rashida Tlaib had received special treatment since she was not arrested along with the other protectors blocking the roadway.
— Eugene (@Eugene72412586) February 15, 2020
Why not arrested like everyone else, it clearly states she was right there along side them and they got arrested and she laughed and went home.
Look at this huge smile she doesn’t look like person fighting for higher wages.— Gregg Hale (@GreggHale621) February 15, 2020
The protests were not confined to Detroit. Members of Unite Here, which represents airline industry employees across the U.S., demonstrated at Delta hubs in Minneapolis and Seattle as well as United and American hubs in Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, the Detroit News reported.
“Until airlines like Delta recognize all the workers whose labor contribute to its record-profits, until airline catering workers get what they deserve in a fair contract, we will keep coming out at the airport and anywhere else Delta will hear us,” Unite Here Local 24 President Nia Winston said.
Tlaib issued a series of tweets in which she said she was proud to stand with the workers “who are willing to put their bodies on the line.”
The airline catering workers are desperate for a better quality of life and put their bodies on the line in their fight against the exorbitant corporate greed by the airlines denying them of their right to a living wage and good health care.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) February 14, 2020
“The airline catering workers are desperate for a better quality of life and put their bodies on the line in their fight against the exorbitant corporate greed by the airlines denying them of their right to a living wage and good healthcare,” she wrote in one post.
