More Silicon Valley shuttle drivers look to unionize

Mike Snider | USA TODAY

The move to unionize Silicon Valley shuttle bus drivers is spreading.

The Teamsters have contacted the CEOs of six Silicon Valley-area companies — Amtrak, Apple, eBay, Genentech, Yahoo and Zynga — to tell them that its drivers want to join a union.

A majority of the 120 full-time and part-time drivers who transport those companies' employees have signed authorization cards with the union, said Rome Aloise, International vice president and secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 853.

The drivers are employed by South San Francisco-based Compass Transportation, which has contracts with Apple and the other firms to transport its workers to and from work.

Genentech, Yahoo and Zynga offered no comment on the developments.

Neither Compass nor the other three companies (Amtrak, Apple, eBay) returned a request for comment.

Teamsters Local 853 is the union that in November unionized Facebook shuttle bus drivers. "The drivers at Facebook, by voting for the union, sparked the interest of the drivers from the other companies, for sure," Aloise said.

The Teamsters organized Facebook shuttle bus drivers after extensive coverage from USA TODAY brought to light tough working conditions. The Facebook drivers, who work for Loop Transportation, told USA TODAY about unfair compensation — $18 to $20 an hour — for marathon workdays ferrying six-figure-earning technology workers to and from work.

Similarly, the Compass employees who transport the workers at the six companies say they work 12- to 16-hour days, driving split shifts in the mornings and evenings to take workers to and from their jobs.

The dispute is not just about low wages, but also about "how wages are computed," said William Gould, a professor at Stanford Law School. "These workers, as a practical matter, have to wait in certain areas to do their work (and) they are not compensated for that wait."

The Teamsters' effort could " enhance the working conditions of employees who have really been left out of the Silicon Valley boom and the resurgence of the American economy," Gould said. "This organizing drive dramatizes the gap between the haves and the have-nots."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who last month hosted a Bay Area workshop on the racial gap in tech, has met with shuttle drivers and other low-wage workers in the area as well as unions. "Economic fairness and justice for Silicon Valley workers must be part of the new economy equation," he said. "Income inequality and huge wealth disparity gaps must be challenged. RainbowPUSH and I ... will work with them to achieve the dignity and respect they deserve."

In his letters to Apple CEO Tim Cook and the other CEOs, Aloise asks them to support the drivers' right to organize.

"Compass Transportation has already begun to employ union-busting methods in an attempt to discourage its employees from seeking the advantages that come with representation," he writes. "You can make a difference in what will certainly turn to threats, coercion and intimidation tactics by Compass as it escalates its campaign to keep its employees unrepresented."

He notes that the drivers who work for Facebook underwent "a horrendous anti-union campaign, but even in the face of this, voted by a vast majority for union representation."

Facebook's drivers voted 43-28 in November for Local 853's representation — a rare win for organized labor in Silicon Valley. As for the union's negotiations for the Facebook drivers, Aloise said, "these talks are progressing favorably and should produce a contract soon."

Employees of Silicon Valley tech companies remain the target of Local 853. In this case, Amtrak happens to be among Compass' contractors who had drivers approach the union.

That initial drive to unionize Facebook's drivers has set off a growing campaign to secure better pay and working conditions for area service workers. This could be a sea change for the unions in the region, says Alan Hyde, a professor at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, N.J., and author of Working in Silicon Valley: Economic and Legal Analysis of a High-Velocity Labor Market.

"So far, the only worker organizations to get a toehold in the Valley are the Service Employees among janitors and now the Teamsters among drivers," he said. "Maybe those old organizations, like unions, will turn out to be what workers in the new economy want."

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