Inside the 110,000 square foot Gate Gourmet facility near Dulles Int. Airport.
Astrid Riecken | The Washington Post | fake pictures
Three Democrats in the House of Representatives on Wednesday criticized airline contractors who laid off more than 9,000 employees despite accepting millions in federal aid for the coronavirus.
Lawmakers asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to stop aid to companies or to ask for part of the funds to be returned to him.
Congress set aside $ 32 billion in payroll support for the struggling airline industry in the $ 2.2 billion CARES Act in March. Of that sum, $ 3 billion was reserved for contractors such as catering companies. The terms of the aid, which were mostly grants, prohibited beneficiaries from firing workers until September 30.
“We urge the Treasury to stop providing taxpayer-funded payroll support for workers who have been laid off and to recover funds that were improperly allocated,” wrote Representative James Clyburn, DS.C., president of a Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Representative Peter DeFazio, Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and Representative Maxine Waters, Chair of the Financial Services Committee, in a letter to Mnuchin.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lawmakers said they started an investigation into helping contractors and said they found at least 12 who accepted more than $ 720 million in government support after firing some 9,300 people.
Among the companies that lawmakers identified was the catering company for the Gate Gourmet airline, whose Zurich-based ownership group Gategroup did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lawmakers said the company is receiving $ 171 million and that it has laid off more than 3,500 workers in California, Georgia, Illinois and New York.
“Providing payroll support to companies that engaged in mass layoffs is not only contrary to the intent of Congress, but also wastes taxpayers’ money by covering the cost of payroll for employees who have already been fired,” Lawmakers said in a letter to the company.
Join here, the union representing Gate Gourmet and Flying Food workers, another contractor who also did not immediately comment, called accepting aid despite the cuts.
“These caterers should be ashamed of having bagged tens of millions of dollars and then left it to the workers that the money was meant to support themselves by applying for state and federal unemployment benefits,” said Meghan Cohorst, press secretary for Unite Here.
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