For Google shuttle drivers, it’s a grueling ride

Brandon Barlow, seen here on Monday, September 8, 2014, is a former driver for WeDriveU which contracted bus services for Google between San Francisco and Mountain View. The Oakland, Calif., resident is no longer with the company and says that the conditions were harsh for the low pay and extreme hours required to work. less Brandon Barlow, seen here on Monday, September 8, 2014, is a former driver for WeDriveU which contracted bus services for Google between San Francisco and Mountain View. The Oakland, Calif., resident is no ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 22 Caption Close For Google shuttle drivers, it’s a grueling ride 1 / 22 Back to Gallery

For Brandon Barlow, life as a Google bus driver was one endless cycle of traffic and exhaust.

He left home before dawn and arrived home late, after long hours spent shuttling Google employees back and forth on Highway 101. And Barlow wasn’t paid for the hours he had to wait around near Google headquarters in Mountain View before making the return run to San Francisco. That was the worst part of the job.

“They make everything convenient for Googlers, but they don’t make anything convenient for drivers,” Barlow said recently, exasperated. “There are so many fatigued tech shuttle drivers out there.”

If Silicon Valley shuttle buses are the physical symbols of San Francisco’s tech boom-fueled friction, then drivers like Barlow find themselves in an odd place: Bus drivers have benefited from the boom, but many feel exploited by those who have profited the most from it.

Such workers are tenuously employed with few job protections. Drivers like Barlow don’t even work for Google — they are employees of third-party contractors who typically receive low wages and often paltry benefits. Some drivers have also questioned the legality of practices employed by those contractors, such as requiring drivers to work split shifts in which they spend unpaid hours waiting for the afternoon leg of the commute.

Short turnaround

Barlow, 38, was employed by WeDriveU, one of the many transportation management companies employed by Bay Area tech firms. He said he was fired in August, after a bomb threat on BART prevented him from getting home until midnight. Because California law requires commercial drivers to receive an adequate amount of sleep, he called his employer to say he couldn’t make the morning leg of his shift.

WeDriveU did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

On weekdays, Barlow would leave his West Oakland home by 5:15 a..m., taking BART to a shuttle that would drop him at Oyster Point, where he picked up the bus he drove for a living — one of Google’s fleet of nondescript, double-deck behemoths that have become so synonymous with class tensions in San Francisco.

By 7:40 a.m., he made his first stop, picking up Mountain View-bound Googlers at Pierce and Lombard streets in the Marina district. He would fight traffic on Highway 101, then hang out (unpaid) until 3:15 p.m., when it was time to make the trip back to San Francisco. He’d do one more trip to Mountain View and start making his way home, where he would arrive around 9 p.m., pass out by 10 and start the whole thing over again the next day.

He made $18.75 an hour. Between the early mornings, late nights and split shifts, Barlow felt burned out after just one year on the job.

In 2004, Google was the first company to provide shuttles to employees who preferred to live in San Francisco. The first buses made two stops in the city and carried 155 passengers.

Now the company provides 112 shuttles which carry 6,000 riders from seven counties. More than one-third of its Mountain View employees catch a shuttle to work.

Other tech companies now also offer shuttles, including Facebook, Yahoo, Apple and Genentech. The city of San Francisco said that tech companies have obtained 500 permits for buses participating in the pilot program that allows the shuttles to use Muni bus stops (though companies are required to get permits for backup buses as well).

Since May, protesters have bemoaned the presence of those buses on city streets, blocking them with demonstrations and blaming them for what they view as the city’s downward spiral. Barlow is not the only tech shuttle driver to take issue with his employer, but their aggravation has been much quieter.

In December 2012, a WeDriveU driver filed a class-action lawsuit against the company on behalf of himself and other drivers. According to the lawsuit, the company failed to pay its drivers for time spent waiting between split shifts, did not provide legally required rest breaks or pay for time drivers spent performing required inspections on vehicles before and after shifts.

WeDriveU and the lead plaintiff recently agreed to a settlement of the suit, though the San Francisco Superior Court has not yet approved it.

'Unconscionable’

“These drivers are low-wage workers who provide transit services for some of the highest valued companies in the world,” said Steven Tidrick, the drivers’ attorney, who would not comment on the terms of the settlement. “For any employer not to pay them for all hours worked is not only illegal, it is unconscionable.”

For some drivers, the settlement only compounded their concerns.

An August draft of the settlement awarded the 89 drivers a combined total of $125,000. After attorneys’ fees, the settlement totaled just $65,000, an average of about $730 per driver. And the amount did not include any award for the split shift, which drivers view as the biggest exploitation. One court filing notes that both sides deemed it “too speculative to factor in.”

The suit makes the same case that Barlow does — in between morning and evening runs, drivers are not really free to use their “free” time as they like, therefore the company should compensate them. To pass the five hours before the next shift, Barlow said, he would use Google’s gym or try to catch some shut-eye on the bus.

“You do what you can to kill time,” he said.

Barlow will receive an estimated $359 in the settlement. He was angry that the settlement doesn’t address any of his primary concerns — he even thought about filing a new suit against the company himself.

“It’s sickening. A lot of other drivers feel like that,” he said. “At least I got something.”

William Gould, a Stanford labor scholar, said that if the drivers aren’t able to truly do whatever they like in their time off-the-clock between shifts, their normal wages should apply.

“It would seem to be that they are on the clock, even though they are not,” he said.

Google declined to comment on the lawsuit, but noted that drivers receive “Google perks,” such as access to campus gyms, cafes and kitchens, to “enjoy” during “down hours on campus.”

But for many tech shuttle drivers, there is no real down time. There is just killing time between bleary-eyed, traffic-clogged trips up and down the freeway.

Another WeDriveU driver, who requested she not be named because she still works for the company, said her two shifts run from 7 to 11 a.m. and 3:30 to 11 p.m.

She said that sometimes the job feels like “jail” — most of her waking hours are spent traveling back and forth between Mountain View and San Francisco with little rest. On some days, she can make it back to the East Bay in between shifts to do things around the house and spend some time with her kids, but that means more hours on the road, more hours commuting to and from work. She is constantly exhausted.

“I’m killing myself for them for $19.25 an hour,” she said.

Few options

She earns well above minimum wage. It would be a decent living, she said, if not for the grueling schedule. But she has four kids and is the sole breadwinner in her household. She sees few options but to keep doing her job.

Barlow said his former employer could provide better rest facilities for drivers between shifts and schedule more “straight runs” instead of split shifts.

He wishes that Google and other companies would demand better treatment of drivers from their contractors.

“Whatever Google says, they jump,” he said.

Barlow has been a professional commercial coach driver for 13 years. He says he loves driving a bus — time goes by quickly. and he enjoyed chatting with Googlers. One employee even brought him coffee every morning.

He recently started a new job, driving a private bus for the CEO of a non-tech company. In some ways, Barlow said, he is relieved WeDriveU fired him.

“I have never come across a job that burns you out so fast,” he said. “All of the money you make isn’t good enough.”

Kristen V. Brown is a

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kbrown@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kristenvbrown