A company that employs wheelchair attendants and cart operators at George Bush Intercontinental Airport has been suspended from a state hiring incentive program amid a probe into claims that it required workers to report tips they didn’t receive.
Further payments to PrimeFlight Aviation Services are on hold until officials complete their investigation, said Rodney Bradshaw, staff director for the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, which manages job services and training for the 13-county Houston-Galveston region.
Bradshaw said the board’s investigation came after the Houston Chronicle reported in August that some PrimeFlight workers at Bush said they were pressured to report more tips than they actually got.
Employees told state investigators the same thing, Bradshaw said.
PrimeFlight, based in Nashville, Tenn., has received $54,400 in wage subsidies through Texas Back to Work, a statewide taxpayer-funded program that reimburses companies up to $2,000 for every qualified worker they hire.
PrimeFlight officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Airlines hire the company to assist passengers with limited mobility by driving them to and from gates in electric carts, or pushing their wheelchairs. Because federal law forbids airlines from charging for such services, the workers cannot display tip cups or indicate they work for tips.
PrimeFlight employees at Bush earn a base wage of $5.25 to $6.35 an hour, according to job postings and employee interviews.
The employees are expected to make enough in tips to bring their hourly pay up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25. A company must make up the difference if an employee doesn’t get enough in tips.
Jacqueline Aswell, 45, said she enjoyed helping passengers but rarely received tips to supplement her $6.50 hourly wage.
Sometimes she would handle only two or three passengers in an eight-hour shift; other times her service was limited to transporting travelers just a few feet from the plane to the waiting area, where she handed off the wheelchair to another employee.
Federal law permits workers who regularly earn more than $30 a month in tips to be considered tipped employees. That allows employers to pay $2.13 an hour in wages with the remainder – $5.12 an hour – coming from tips.
Aswell said she was told by her boss to report enough tips daily to reach the monthly minimum.
“I got written up,” she said, sitting in her parents’ kitchen in Kingwood recounting the experience.
Aswell said when she told her boss that she wasn’t receiving tips, she was told it was her fault, not the company’s.
Taxes paid anyway
She needed the job and did as she was told, Aswell said. She has copies of documents in which she reported $6 a day in tips she says she didn’t receive. That also meant taxes were withheld on money she never earned.
PrimeFlight terminated Aswell in April, telling her she had failed to fill out a tip sheet three times. That was news to Aswell, who said that it was sometimes hard to find the sheets at checkout time.
Employing Aswell qualified PrimeFlight to receive a subsidy of up to $2,000 under the Texas Back to Work program, designed as an incentive to hire the unemployed.
Qualifying workers must have earned $15 per hour or less in their previous jobs, and made an initial application for unemployment benefits after Aug. 31, 2009. They must still be receiving benefits, or must of have exhausted them, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
Although Aswell met those qualifications, there’s no way to know whether PrimeFlight actually received a subsidy for hiring her, because unemployment records are confidential, according to the Gulf Coast Workforce Board.
After she was terminated, PrimeFlight’s payroll vendor reported to the Workforce Commisision that Aswell “failed to meet the established tip credit for her position.”
Airline asked to step in
The agency initially rejected Aswell’s request for unemployment compensation benefits, but reversed itself when she appealed, ruling that PrimeFlight officials instructed her to “put a specific minimum amount in her tip report even if she did not actually receive any tips.”
The agency also said Aswell wasn’t warned that her job was in jeopardy if she failed to report the minimum required tips.
The Service Employees International Union, which is trying to organize the PrimeFlight workers, met with a human resources representative of Continental Airlines. The carrier contracts with PrimeFlight to assist its passengers, and the union has asked Continental to intercede in its wage and hour problems.
In a written statement, the airline said it “holds all of our vendors to the highest standards, and expects them to follow all applicable laws and regulations.”
lm.sixel@chron.com
