United Pushes Back on Catering Workers’ Fight to Unionize

Alain Moore, a 44-year-old Liberian immigrant, broke his wrist last October while strapping a food cart to the truck he drives to and from airplanes for United Airlines at the Newark Liberty International Airport. Over the last seven years, he’s seen coworkers lose fingers and suffer heat stroke in hot trucks with no air conditioning on the tarmac.

Moore’s accounts echo the belief of more than 2,700 other non-union catering employees at United that the company lacks the mechanisms to keep workers safe.

Earlier this year, about 76 percent of the employees, whose work ranges from food preparation to security, ...