Some janitors at Oakland International Airport pulled in $200,000 or more in a single year, payroll records show, including eight who out-earned Oakland’s own mayor in 2023. That eyebrow-raising pay came under scrutiny after accusations that managers were steering the most lucrative overtime shifts to favored workers, and that some employees were paying kickbacks to get them. An outside investigation has now delivered its verdict: favoritism, yes. Kickbacks, no.
The findings come from an 82-page report prepared by the Municipal Resource Group, which the Port of Oakland hired after the custodians’ union, SEIU 1021, filed a formal grievance, according to The Oaklandside. The Port of Oakland operates the airport under a governing board appointed by the mayor and city council, and the paper reports the port’s labor relations manager, Pamela Trawick, told the union on February 21, 2025 that an outside investigator had been secured, asking SEIU 1021 to pause its grievance while the review proceeded. That pause meant much of the grievance process, and how it was ultimately resolved, was never publicly documented, per the same account.
How the Complaints Started
Complaints about how overtime was being handed out first started cropping up in June 2024, the outlet notes. SEIU 1021 filed its grievance on February 19, 2025, alleging that managers were rigging the process by steering lucrative overtime shifts to favored workers while others were systematically passed over, and the union asked for compensation for the overlooked custodians along with removal of the supervisors responsible. The union also alleged that some favored workers paid kickbacks to managers in exchange for overtime, though the report notes the union’s accounts of cash, meals, travel, flights, and rental cars allegedly exchanged for shifts were often secondhand.
The investigation concluded the kickback allegations lacked credible evidence, while finding that most other alleged examples of favoritism were not substantiated. But the report did sustain some complaints: inconsistent overtime-distribution practices created inequitable treatment of custodians, and favoritism did influence how some shifts were allocated, the document found. The report ultimately concluded that a lack of written standard procedure led to both possible and actual unintentional inequities in how overtime got handed out…