UNITE HERE Local 11: As Los Angeles Prepares to Host the World, Report Exposes Labor Abuses at LAX Catering Company

New International Assessment Finds Flying Food Group Violates Human Rights Commitments to Workers Who Feed Passengers

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With mega-events set to bring tens of millions of visitors through Los Angeles International Airport, a damning new report reveals that Flying Food Group (FFG) — a company that caters food for international airlines at LAX — has systematically violated the labor rights of over 700 workers who make international travel possible.

The report, Lax Standards: Assessing Flying Food Group LLC's Labor Practices under International Labor Standards, was authored by Deborah Greenfield, a former Deputy Director-General of the ILO—the body of the United Nations that sets international labor standards—and Lance Compa, Senior Lecturer Emeritus at Cornell University's ILR School. Their assessment evaluates FFG against international human rights and labor standards, including those the company pledged to uphold when it joined the United Nations Global Compact in November 2024.

"We are the invisible backbone of air travel," said Lilian Rosales, flight coordinator at Flying Food Group. "We're asking: what does it mean to welcome the world when those of us serving the guests are denied our basic rights?"

The report documents a sweeping pattern of violations:

• Unsafe Working Conditions: Among other hazards, two fires broke out at FFG's Inglewood facility within four months — in October 2025 and January 2026. During the January fire, after other workers evacuated, two workers were found inside a cooler room whose entrance door had been chained shut from the outside. The near tragedy, which is currently under investigation, was entirely foreseeable: Cal/OSHA had previously cited FFG for failing to ensure that walk-in freezers could be opened from the inside — a finding Cal/OSHA affirmed in a February 2026 Settlement Order, with FFG paying a fine. This episode echoed an incident in 2023 in which FFG bolted shut an exit door from the outside on the day of a planned worker picket line, leading to enforcement action by two government agencies.
• Wage Theft: The City of Los Angeles issued six separate notices finding FFG or its onsite subcontractors in violation of the airport minimum wage between 2022 and 2023. FFG has also settled two wage class actions — one in 2017 for $4,150,000 covering more than 1,000 workers, and one in 2025 for $400,000 — and paid $700,000 to workers unlawfully denied timely reinstatement under California's COVID right-to-recall law.
• Sexual Harassment and Retaliation: Seven women filed sexual harassment complaints between November 2024 and March 2025, with the accused supervisor remaining on the job for seven months after the first charges were filed. Three workers who spoke publicly about the harassment have alleged they later faced disciplinary retaliation. The complaints remain pending.
• Freedom of Association: Flying Food Group has not only maintained an employee handbook declaring its commitment to a "union-free" environment while legally obligated to bargain with UNITE HERE Local 11 — it went further, actively promoting a decertification campaign to eliminate the union entirely. In a highly unusual move, in a March 2026 settlement with the National Labor Relations Board, FFG admitted to backing the effort to oust the union and interrogating employees about their union sympathies.

The report outlines the ways in which these practices violate ILO standards for safety and health, living wage, non-discrimination, and freedom of association.

Importantly, the international airlines that contract with Flying Food Group are obligated under multiple international human rights instruments to conduct “human rights due diligence” with respect to their suppliers, including using their leverage to ensure compliance with ILO standards and other international norms. The Union has filed complaints against several of these airlines—Air France, Lufthansa, and Japan Airlines—under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for failing to do so, and has reached out to others, including All Nippon Airways. To date, these airlines have failed to take sufficient action to address FFG's conduct.

Flying Food Group is also required to comply with city and state worker protection laws as a condition of maintaining its license to operate at LAX, which expires this June. The City’s rules require that a company’s compliance history be considered in determining whether to renew a license. Given its record of violations, UNITE HERE Local 11 is urging the City to not renew FFG’s license.

UNITE HERE Local 11 represents more than 32,000 workers in airports, hotels, restaurants, sports arenas, convention centers, and other venues throughout Southern California and Arizona.