Will JFK airport strike snarl Christmas travel plans?

Security guards at New York's busy JFK airport are threatening to walk off the job around Christmas, a move that could leave holiday air travelers in the lurch.

About 300 security workers – workers whose duties include directing traffic in front of terminals and safeguarding tarmac security around gates – are voting today and tomorrow on whether to authorize a strike.

If the employees follow through on that threat, they'd walk off the job Dec. 20 – the Thursday leading into the busy air travel weekend ahead of Tuesday's Christmas holiday.

JFK, of course, is one of the nation's busiest airports and is a hub for three big U.S. airlines: American, Delta and JetBlue. Any significant disruption to flights would affect not only New York fliers, but also passengers flying between other cities via connections at JFK. With planes already flying at near-record capacity levels, any backlog of stranded passengers would be difficult for airlines to reaccommodate on other flights during the busy holiday travel period.

Crain's New York Business writes "the employees are seeking increases to their $8-an-hour, no-benefits compensation; replacement of shoddy equipment; better training; and an end to what they call illegal practices prohibiting them from talking to co-workers about working conditions and organizing into a union."

"Our radio batteries often go dead," 55-year-old night-shift worker Prince Jackson says to Crain's. "There are not enough charging stations or extra radios and someone often has to leave their post to go get batteries."

The two companies that employ the upset workers -- Air Serve and Global Elite Group -- say they are open to talks, The Associated Press reports.

Still, a spokeswoman from Global Elite struck a note of skepticism to The Wall Street Journal.

"Global Elite Group believes this is part of a larger ploy by the service workers' union to generate public and governmental support for its efforts to unionize our employees," the spokeswoman says to the Journal, which calls the strike threat part of a broader "fight to revive labor's influence" in the New York City area.

The Journal also notes that workers for the two companies have filed complaints with the Transportation Security Administration alleging their job conditions have led to security lapses at the airport. "Issues ranged from a lack of functioning equipment to insufficient staff and time allotted for searching planes," the Journal writes.

However, an official from TSA tells the Journal that it investigated the complaint and found no regulatory violations.

Stay tuned ...