Dwayne Green pushes wheelchairs all day at Mineta San Jose International Airport.
In his snug red vest, the 52-year-old San Jose resident hangs out at Terminal A for 40 hours a week, waiting for someone who needs assistance. Occasionally, if he's lucky, someone will tip him a few extra dollars.
"The way we get paid is just ridiculous,'' grumbled Green. "We don't have no benefits. I live from paycheck to paycheck."
Green is one of as many as 500 workers at the airport who push wheelchairs, carry bags, check in luggage or perform a number of essential tasks. And they are now at the center of a controversial proposal under consideration by the San Jose City Council to raise their wages.
Working Partnerships USA, an arm of the South Bay Labor Council, is pushing a plan to boost the economic standing of all airport workers, including employees of airline subcontractors and concessionaires. Under the plan, workers who earn as little as $8 an hour would get paid $12.83 an hour with health benefits, or $14.08 hourly if no benefits are offered.
The council will debate the proposal at today's meeting and could take a final vote later this year.
The proposal comes amid a national economic crisis in which airlines have taken a huge hit. With the soaring cost of fuel and fewer people flying, several airlines have filed for bankruptcy and some have gone out of business.
San Jose officials are clinging to the 13 airlines who remain at the airport and fear that any new proposal that requires airlines to spend more would drive some airlines out of the city.
Just a month ago, the city council, hoping to keep as many of the remaining 170 or so daily flights as it can, agreed to lower the airlines' terminal fees and other charges by $2.2 million.
The city is counting on a turnaround in the airline industry to help support the city's current $1.3 billion airport expansion.
San Jose's living-wage policy was adopted in 1998 and requires companies who do more than $20,000 in business with the city pay its employees a so-called living wage. Councilman Sam Liccardo is urging a cautious approach to the new proposal.
"Nobody believes that a worker can support a family in San Jose on $8 an hour," Liccardo said. "But we also want to make sure that the policies we impose do not cause airlines to cut routes and eliminate jobs in San Jose."
According to one estimate by city staff, the proposal could cost the airline industry as much as $5 million to boost the salaries of its subcontractors. Officials are still debating the exact number of employees who would be affected as well as the financial impact.
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, the executive director of Working Partnerships, acknowledged that airlines and the companies who subcontract with them may pay a financial toll, but they are not the only ones struggling financially.
"Right now, people who work there are making a minimum wage and paying to park, so in essence they are being paid less than a minimum wage," Ellis-Lamkins said. "When everyone is at a crisis point, what do you do?"
She said that paying higher wages and benefits would result in less turnover and contribute to a safer, happier and more stable workforce.
Marilee McInnis, spokeswoman for Southwest, the busiest airline at the airport, said the company is watching closely.
"We are studying the proposal and its potential impacts," she said.
For workers at the airport, they already know the answer. A gaggle of skycaps gathered in front of Terminal A said they would welcome a pay raise. They declined to give their names, explaining that they didn't have permission from Southwest.
Madeline Garduque works two full-time jobs, one of them as an $8 an hour wheelchair pusher for subcontractor G2 Secure Staff. Some days, the 42-year-old San Jose resident sleeps only two hours a day.
"There are a lot of bills," she said. "Even with my two jobs, it's not enough."
