Shuttle bus drivers serving Apple, other Silicon Valley tech companies look to unionize
A Teamsters representative last week notified the CEOs of Apple, Amtrak, eBay, Genentech, Yahoo and Zynga that shuttle bus drivers contracted to service their employees are seeking to unionize.
According to Teamsters Local 853 International vice president and secretary-treasurer Rome Aloise, a majority of drivers working for Compass Transportation have signed union authorization cards, reports USA Today. Compass currently employs about 120 full-time and part-time drivers to shuttle workers at Apple and other tech companies back and forth between work and home.
"The drivers at Facebook, by voting for the union, sparked the interest of the drivers from the other companies, for sure," Aloise said, referring to the recent unionization of drivers serving the social media giant.
The impetus behind shuttle drivers' push toward unionizing is pay. For example, drivers working for Loop Transportation, the company contracted by Facebook, make $18 to $20 an hour and have to work "marathon" shifts. By comparison, Compass drivers work 12- to 16-hour split shifts morning and night. The drivers are looking for pay commensurate with the affluent status of tech companies to which they are contracted.
In his notes to Silicon Valley CEOs, including Apple chief Tim Cook, Aloise hopes to curry favor with the influential tech companies, which would in turn put pressure on Compass to enter negotiations.
"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," Aloise wrote. "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."
At the heart of the matter is a huge wage disparity between workers with non-skill jobs, like drivers and security guards, and tech employees earning six-figure salaries. Also an issue is the so-called "gentrification" of San Francisco, where longtime residents are being displaced by wealthy tech workers.
In November, unions pushed Apple for better treatment of security guards contracted to patrol the company's campus. Again, in this case better treatment refers to higher wages.
According to Teamsters Local 853 International vice president and secretary-treasurer Rome Aloise, a majority of drivers working for Compass Transportation have signed union authorization cards, reports USA Today. Compass currently employs about 120 full-time and part-time drivers to shuttle workers at Apple and other tech companies back and forth between work and home.
"The drivers at Facebook, by voting for the union, sparked the interest of the drivers from the other companies, for sure," Aloise said, referring to the recent unionization of drivers serving the social media giant.
The impetus behind shuttle drivers' push toward unionizing is pay. For example, drivers working for Loop Transportation, the company contracted by Facebook, make $18 to $20 an hour and have to work "marathon" shifts. By comparison, Compass drivers work 12- to 16-hour split shifts morning and night. The drivers are looking for pay commensurate with the affluent status of tech companies to which they are contracted.
In his notes to Silicon Valley CEOs, including Apple chief Tim Cook, Aloise hopes to curry favor with the influential tech companies, which would in turn put pressure on Compass to enter negotiations.
"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," Aloise wrote. "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."
At the heart of the matter is a huge wage disparity between workers with non-skill jobs, like drivers and security guards, and tech employees earning six-figure salaries. Also an issue is the so-called "gentrification" of San Francisco, where longtime residents are being displaced by wealthy tech workers.
In November, unions pushed Apple for better treatment of security guards contracted to patrol the company's campus. Again, in this case better treatment refers to higher wages.
Comments
Typical click-bait. It's like blaming Apple when Foxconn exploits their own workers.
Though I'd judge driving a large multi-passenger vehicle as more skill than floor surface buffing and polishing or waste bin emptying. All necessary but evenso...
Driving a bus is not exactly a high skilled job or a skill that requires extensive training and the people seeking to unionize should immediately be fired and they should have their jobs replaced by others who are not self-entitled and who are willing to work. Let's see them provide for their families on $0.00 an hour. You could probably train an intelligent chimpanzee to drive a bus around.
With a few exceptions, the majority of unions are bad news and they should be disbanded.
Yep.
Same in England. The unions are parasites, that helped to ruin our education with progressive comprehensive schools, in which everyone is treated the same.
Before that, we had grammar schools, which were founts of excellence: they segregated according to ability and taught the basics properly. There are still a few left, but the looney left abolished most of them.
Driving a bus is not exactly a high skilled job or a skill that requires extensive training and the people seeking to unionize should immediately be fired and they should have their jobs replaced by others who are not self-entitled and who are willing to work. Let's see them provide for their families on $0.00 an hour. You could probably train an intelligent chimpanzee to drive a bus around.
With a few exceptions, the majority of unions are bad news and they should be disbanded.
The only problem with though is that it's illegal to do so
Driving a bus is not exactly a high skilled job or a skill that requires extensive training and the people seeking to unionize should immediately be fired and they should have their jobs replaced by others who are not self-entitled and who are willing to work. Let's see them provide for their families on $0.00 an hour. You could probably train an intelligent chimpanzee to drive a bus around.
With a few exceptions, the majority of unions are bad news and they should be disbanded.
The only problem with though is that it's illegal to do so
They're "bad news and they should be disbanded".
"Disbanded" by whom?
The left's view is no one should excel since that's not the norm. They want everyone to comply to their basic 'mould' and can't stand anything out of the ordinary.
Unions are the reason the UK's
cartoolironworkengineeringentire manufacturing industry went bust.Driving a bus is not exactly a high skilled job or a skill that requires extensive training and the people seeking to unionize should immediately be fired and they should have their jobs replaced by others who are not self-entitled and who are willing to work. Let's see them provide for their families on $0.00 an hour. You could probably train an intelligent chimpanzee to drive a bus around.
With a few exceptions, the majority of unions are bad news and they should be disbanded.
Tuned in just to see your response, wasn't disappointed.
I'd love to see some of the financial fallout from this economy going to working stiffs for a change.
AFAIC, any attempts to strongarm Apple should result in a change of suppliers.
It's called evolution of the economy. Nothing could've saved the manufacturing industry.
Driving a bus is not exactly a high skilled job or a skill that requires extensive training and the people seeking to unionize should immediately be fired and they should have their jobs replaced by others who are not self-entitled and who are willing to work. Let's see them provide for their families on $0.00 an hour. You could probably train an intelligent chimpanzee to drive a bus around.
With a few exceptions, the majority of unions are bad news and they should be disbanded.
I partly agree with you. I hate unions to the Nth degree. Can't stand them. They are the reason so many things are screwed up in our country. There are many laws already on the books that essentially make unions irrelevant. Their "union dues" is just a fancy phrase for "extortion".
That being said, this bus drama is different I think. Yes it's low-skill work. but just like janitors, dishwashers, etc... they still should be allowed to make a decent, livable wage. Now, what defines "decent" is up for grabs. What sucks about the bus drivers are that they have to drive far from the dispatch office (and home) to say, the Facebook campus, and then have to essentially wait down there for several hours until the Facebook employees are ready to go home. The drivers are essentially held hostage (imho) and should be paid for that time. Sure, some of them have access to the campus facilities to pass time, but it's still not really "their" time. It's not right, they should be paid.
It's not Apple's fault. It's not Facebook's fault. It's the damn companies that provide the bus services that need to be dealt with. They should pay their employees a good wage. It just makes sense. To simply dismiss it as "They're lucky to have a job" is just ignorant. Let's face it. Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook get all the glory, but it's the front-line folks like these drivers, janitors, gas-station attendants (at 2:00am), service workers, etc.. that are the grease of the machinery. They are people too and should be treated with respect.
Even with that being said, if some union-honcho trying to organize the bus-workers came up to me in my company and say "Your employees riding in our buses are paid handsomely and are rich, therefore we "deserve" a part of that.", I'd give him the middle-finger and a big "Fcuk You" and boot his a$$ out the door. What the bus drivers "deserve" is a decent, livable wage, and should be paid for all the time they spend working for the company, as well as being on call. I have zero problem with that. What they don't "deserve" is taking other people's money without earning it. That is the typical libtard mentality.
I agree with some of your points, but here's the thing... People don't "deserve" jobs or "fair pay" as determined by some nebulous collectivist or centrally planned governmental metric. People participate in a competive market and wages are determined by many factors. Arbitrarily determining wage "fairness" is a quick path to distorted markets and misallocation of funds.
Management salaries are the ones that are distorted, and they're the masters of misallocation of funds. Productivity has increased exponentially in the last 10-20 years, but employees wages have stagnated, but if the company isn't doing well they're the first ones to get a pay cut. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want some 2 bit driver entrusted with my commute to and from work.
It'll be soon enough that bus, cab and delivery drivers of all types will be replaced with automation. This is no longer science-fiction and it'll start happening in 5 years or less.
According to Ray Kurzweil's prediction, by 2019, "Computers do most of the vehicle driving—-humans are in fact prohibited from driving on highways unassisted. Furthermore, when humans do take over the wheel, the onboard computer system constantly monitors their actions and takes control whenever the human drives recklessly. As a result, there are very few transportation accidents."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil#2019
In case any are unaware, Ray Kurzweil is the world-famous inventor and futurist who now works at Google where the driverless vehicle is currently making some of the biggest advances.
I consider it my ignorance, but I'm anti-Union, as well because employees abuse their "protective blanket", demanding higher wages while working less, knowing they are protected against being fired or bumped out by a more qualified coworker that was hired after them. Unless seniority can be left out of the union equation?
Driving a bus is not exactly a high skilled job or a skill that requires extensive training and the people seeking to unionize should immediately be fired and they should have their jobs replaced by others who are not self-entitled and who are willing to work. Let's see them provide for their families on $0.00 an hour. You could probably train an intelligent chimpanzee to drive a bus around.
With a few exceptions, the majority of unions are bad news and they should be disbanded.
I don't think you can find any exceptions. All unions are scum. They have no place in todays world.