”Five months after unionizing, 75 bus drivers voted Saturday for a proposal that would increase their wages to $27.50 and provide them with new benefits,” Sara Ashley O’Brien reports for CNN. “These drivers are all employed by a firm called Compass Transportation, which services seven companies: Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga, Genentech, Amtrak and Evernote. They’re represented by Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, California.”
“According to Rome Aloise, international vice president at Teamsters, the pay increase is significant bump from the $17 to $21 an hour they’re currently making,” O’Brien reports. “The contract also addresses drivers’ scheduling concerns: split shifts (drivers who work several hours in the morning and return to the depot for several unpaid hours before working an evening shift), as well as calls for employer contributions to a defined pension plan.”
“Now, each of the companies must sign off on it. If approved, over 160 drivers will see a wage increase,” O’Brien reports. “In San Francisco, the buses used by major tech firms are a reminder of the area’s inequality. Tech’s high-paid workers are driving up rents, while working class tenants are pushed further out of the city as they struggle to afford the skyrocketing rents.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Why doesn’t Apple just pay Compass enough to pay these bus drivers what Apple pays their MIT-educated engineers? A couple hundred grand per year to start with full medical, dental, neonatal, extended parental leave, child care services, donation-matching, of course, and plenty of restricted stock units, etc. would keep them driving those buses. Then the bus drivers would be able to afford very nice digs virtually anywhere in San Francisco. After all, Apple is such a rich company, it’s not like they can’t afford it.
(Dripping sarcasm like Niagara Falls drips water.)