Shuttle bus drivers for Apple, Yahoo and other tech giants to vote on unionization

Source: San Jose Mercury News

As organized labor steps up its efforts in Silicon Valley, shuttle bus drivers who transport the employees of Apple, Yahoo and other tech giants will vote on whether to unionize later this month.

Drivers employed by Compass Transportation -- which has contracts with Amtrak, Apple, eBay, Genentech, Yahoo and Zynga -- will decide whether to join the Teamsters union on Feb. 27 in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, said Rome Aloise, international vice president and secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 853. The union wants to bring the drivers into the fold so it can help them negotiate for better pay and benefits as well as relief from a split shift that requires them to shuttle employees in the morning and evening without pay in the interim, Aloise said.

The Teamsters are building on momentum from Facebook's shuttle bus drivers at Loop Transportation, who voted to join the union in November. Though a patchwork of contractors shuttle tech employees to and from work in the valley, the Teamsters hope to set a new standard for drivers' wages and benefits across the board, Aloise said.

... The Teamsters' bid to unionize more drivers comes amid an ever-widening income gap in the Bay Area, with many advocates protesting that the valley's surging profits have not trickled down beyond the tech elite. Highly skilled workers in Silicon Valley have a median income of $118,700, dwarfing the $27,000 earned by workers in low-skill jobs, according to a new report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27461221/shuttle-bus-drivers-apple-yahoo-and-other-tech