Kennedy Airport Skycaps Get $925,000 In Wage Settlement
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York state has announced a $925,000 settlement with a Kennedy Airport contractor that had been paying skycaps below the minimum wage.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said that between 2008 and 2014, Alstate Maintenance LLC paid about 40 skycaps as little as $3.90 per hour.
The minimum wage ranged from $7.15 to $8 during the years covered by the investigation.
"These were not the wages required by the law," Schneiderman told reporters, including WCBS 880's Paul Murnane. "And this was wage theft, pure and simple."
Although most skycaps receive tips for carrying luggage, Alstate failed to qualify for a tip credit which would have allowed the company to pay workers at a lower hourly rate.
Schneiderman said that even if Alstate had qualified, the hourly wages were lower than the legal tipped minimum wage would have been.
"JFK earns billions of dollars, and we been getting underpaid for the longest," said Kennedy Airport skycap Jeffrey Young.
Alstate also has agreed to implement reforms.
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