Teamsters Seek To Unionize More Tech Shuttle Bus Drivers In Silicon Valley

An anonymous reader writes with news about the effort to unionize shuttle drivers in Silicon Valley. "Shuttle bus drivers for five prominent tech companies will decide whether to unionize on Friday in a vote that has the potential to dramatically expand organized labor's territory in Silicon Valley and embolden others in the tech industry's burgeoning class of service workers to demand better working conditions. Drivers who ferry Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga workers -- all employed by contractor Compass Transportation -- will decide whether to join the Teamsters union in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Union leaders say they want to bring the drivers into the fold so they can negotiate better pay and benefits -- as well as relief from a split shift that has the drivers working morning and evening shifts with no pay in between. A contract the Teamsters struck over the weekend for Facebook's shuttle bus drivers, who work for Loop Transportation, offers a glimpse of what may be possible: paid sick and vacation time, full health care coverage and wages of up to $27.50 an hour."

Comments

That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Before too long we won't need the bus drivers. Automated cars will smash the unions

Re:That is okay

[gl4ss]

the blurb says for 5 companies.
then it says it's drivers from 1 company.

if it becomes a problem, it's really because the the companies decided to outsource the service, to save up, possibly to avoid paying their negotiated employee benefits and such.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Unions are collective bargaining. Collective bargaining forms the basis for an intelligent, social civilisastion. Some unions are good for workers, campaigning for an end to the dire conditions found themselves enduring through early C20, and others are corrupt and useless (in Western Europe I have rarely found a harmful union, but the US is so hardline capitalist that even some of its unions end up top-heavy), but saying "smash the unions!" is like shouting "GMO is evil!" - it's a nonsense blanket statement by an anti-science ideologue;

2) Soon sufficient automation will make you unemployed. Be careful what you wish for, because it's only hubris that's keeping you confident. Unless you're a multimillionaire you're not secure, and a sufficiently small handful of multimillionaires in an automated utopia will soon find nobody is interested in protecting their wealth.

Re:That is okay

[stealth_finger]

flexibilisation

Nice.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

"smash the unions!" is like shouting "GMO is evil!"

Right now, at this time, people and small business (and thus the economy) are losing a lot of money because unions are closing down the docks in major ports. Why? Because they want their uneducated box-pushers who are already earning 147k a year, to make even more. Did you read that? People who did not invest in any degree, dropped out of high school and got a job at the docks earning 147k a year, and are now demanding more. Demanding more by crippling the rest of the economy. Are you kidding me?

TFA even says:

"Now is the opportunity for shuttle bus drivers, for food service workers, for janitors, for security officers to re-ask the question: Should I be equally as valued as the high tech workers in the high tech industry?" said David Huerta, president of United Service Workers West.

Really? I mean, really? Are you seriously expecting an employee without a high school diploma doing the most simple job in the world to earn the same income as someone with a Master's degree or PHD? Really? That's just plain nonsense. Remember that all they do is drive a vehicle from A to B. Something that all of us do on a very regular basis.

Let's for a moment look at a Bay Area without bus drivers. There would be a bit more cars on the road so it would take me an hour to get to work instead of 40 minutes. And perhaps I'd work from home a bit more.

Now let's see what would happen to Apple, Google or Facebook if there would be no software engineers. Oh wait, I forgot. There would be no Apple, Google, or Facebook.

Is it really that weird that tech companies pay their high value tech employees more than the average bus driver?

The one thing that I agree with, and I agree with that very strongly, is that everyone who has a full time job should be able to earn a living wage and get healthcare benefits. Every single bus driver, every single janitor, every single security guard should be able to put a roof over their head, buy some nice toys for their kids and go to Disneyland once in a while. So in that sense, I do agree with the outcome of the process, and even think that the $27,50 is a bit low. $35 would be better and fair, considering the housing market in the Bay area.

But they should also realize that if they had done better in school (no, that English major does not count), they could have had a tech job as well. It takes 16+ years of education to get a Master's degree. It takes less than 16 months to get a commercial driver's license. That fact is embedded in tech workers wages.

Re:That is okay

[dywolf]

the simple fact of the matter is that EVERYONE is underpaid.
that doesn't mean you should begrudge the dockworker a decent living simply because "they're uneducated box pushers".

rather, the key to boosting everyones' pay to where it should be is to start raising wages.
the economy can handle it easily.

The simple fact of the matter is that is wages had kept pace with productivity the current median wage would be ~140k/yr, and not the current anemic ~50k/yr.

All the extra revenue from that increased productivity has been going to the executives, the CEOs, the 0.1%, since the mid 70s. Ever since they first started weakening the unions, spreading the myth of "trickle down economics", and generally f---ing over the middle class who built this country and its economy. God forbid the people who actually generate that revenue, who actually caused the growth in the economy, share in the fruits of their labor.

Re:That is okay

[NotDrWho]

Automated cars will smash the unions

Well, until all the unemployed workers smash the automated cars.

Re:That is okay

[nbauman]

Right now, at this time, people and small business (and thus the economy) are losing a lot of money because unions are closing down the docks in major ports. Why? Because they want their uneducated box-pushers who are already earning 147k a year, to make even more. Did you read that? People who did not invest in any degree, dropped out of high school and got a job at the docks earning 147k a year, and are now demanding more. Demanding more by crippling the rest of the economy. Are you kidding me?
 

Yes, I read it. It's $83,000 a year, not $147,000. Stop bragging about how smart you are if you can't read a simple newspaper story, realize there are two sides to the story, and do some simple arithmetic.

You say it would be fair for them to make $35/h. Well, $35/h x 40h/wk x 50 wk/yr = $70,000/yr, which is pretty close to $83,000. So they merely drove a good bargain. You have a problem with people making good money?

There are reasons why they make so much money that you resent them.

First, they know how to negotiate. That's something you might learn from them.

When they negotiate, they don't want to match the race to the bottom. They know how much their employer is making and they want a piece of the action. They want job security and they want, in effect, something like an ownership interest in the company. That's not so strange. In Germany, unions have a seat on the board of directors of a company.

Second, they made a grand bargain decades ago. There was new technology that would make their job more labor-saving and efficient. Instead of obstructing it, they agreed to be forward-thinking and go along with it. However, if the company got the benefits of improved efficiency, they wanted the benefits of improved efficiency too. That's why they're making $83,000 a year. Here's a profitable business, where the owners are making millions a year. Why should they settle for $70,000 when their boss is rich and could easily pay $83,000 a year?

My landlord was making at least $300,000 a year, probably more. He inherited the building from his father, like most landlords. He worked hard, just like a longshoreman. Do I envy him? No. That's the free market.

If you live in a rental building, do you envy your landlord if he makes $300,000 a year? Do you envy your maintenance man, who fixes your boiler? Do you envy your auto mechanic? This is a rich country. Why do you want to drag everybody down to the bottom?

Re:That is okay

[Wycliffe]

People said two decades ago that we would all have 30 hour work weeks from home in paperless offices thanks to technology. See how that turned out.

Unfortunately, the main reason this hasn't happened is because it's easier, more efficient, and cheaper* to train one person and have
them work 60 hours a week than it is to train 2 people and have them each work 30 hours a week.

*It's cheaper even IF companies were required to pay overtime (which many don't). Time and a half is cheaper than the added
expense of medical, additional training, and Brooks's law.

Re:That is okay

[Chrisq]

Before too long we won't need the bus drivers. Automated cars will smash the unions

I hope their steering is better than that

Re:That is okay

[RabidReindeer]

I'm an employee of a company. I provide a service, in exchange for compensation. That's it, and that's that.

You won't be an employee of MY company. I expect anyone who works to me to be invested in the company so that they will have motivation to help the company, not merely be a salaried drone. I'll bet that one of your standard auto-quacks about Why Unions Are Bad is that union workers are drones who have no motivation do do anything much because they cannot easily be fired.

You, on the other hand, don't belong to a union, and you're not invested in your employer. Drones like that are the first out the door. And since this is the Century of the Disposable Employee you will be. You may think you're a Special Snowflake now, but your attitude WILL negate that.

If I want to run a company, I'm free to start my own.

Then do so. You may discover it's not as easy as your think.

Re:That is okay

[Serzen]

37.5 hours here, full-time, full benefits (medical, dental, life, vision, hearing, retirement match of 9%), extraordinary paid time away (medical, personal, vacation). I have the option to flex my hours to meet my own schedule instead of work's. But I work in higher education, so I know it's not the norm.

I know, 37.5 might as well be 40, but a lot of places in the area consider 37.5 to be full-time. Just pointing out that the 40-hour week is starting to be scaled back.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Obamacare got many people the 29.95 hour work week.

Re:That is okay

[pnutjam]

Your whole comment is predicated that software guys should make more then bus drivers. Nobody is arguing that. It's true and it will continue to be true. These guys are making $27.50. If you make that much as a software dev in NorCal, you did something wrong. Maybe that fits the midwest, but even there you should be at least 30% higher.

Re:That is okay

[srobert]

That's a hollow threat when the private sector is less than 8% unionized. Someone commented that decades ago, we were told that in future (that's now) the work week would be shorter and living standards higher. Yes, we said that in the 60's and 70's. So why didn't that happen? If we had kept the 35% unionization rate we had back then, it would have. Instead, we busted unions, outsourced labor, and allowed the billionaire class to accumulate nearly all the benefits of increased per worker productivity that arises out of new technology to themselves. I hope the drivers are smart enough to vote for this. I was in the Teamsters myself once. It made a huge difference.

Re:That is okay

[Serzen]

Central New York. Mind, most of my friends work in either academia or health care, so results can be skewed. Also, anecdotes aren't data, I know.

Re:That is okay

[CaptSlaq]

Yeah... my experience in working along side with those in Academia indicates to me that the requirements and culture are VASTLY different from working in the private sector. YMMV.

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

you, you get tenure ;)

Slashdot

[ledow]

Anybody else's Slashdot break today?

I've gone to this top-menu-bar thing, with no left gap at all, with no comment button at all (only Reply To This, sorry!) without warning.

Also, the content is trapped in the left-hand half of the page and won't stretch across.

Not only that, by on the same screen where I have "Ads Disabled" checked, I see an ad.

Slashdot, seriously, without a comment button, I'm gone for good this time.

Re:Slashdot

[Cenan]

Yeah, intern #22451 pushed his amateur-hour changes and went home for the day. Testing is for pussies.

Re:Slashdot

[ledow]

No, I have Javascript enabled, have latest Chrome. It's just borked, and it only happened today (no updates to software between yesterday and today - same browser session still running in fact!) but the site now doesn't render at all nicely and it LOOKS deliberate, but I'm missing any kind of Post button at all.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I have Javascript enabled, have latest Chrome. It's just borked, and it only happened today (no updates to software between yesterday and today - same browser session still running in fact!) but the site now doesn't render at all nicely and it LOOKS deliberate, but I'm missing any kind of Post button at all.

It is there on the far left side of the post rating bar but the colour of the text is hard to see.

On badly calibrated monitors it would be impossible to see.

Comes up a a full button when you hover over it though.

Basically a dumb idea, the text should be brighter.

Sick

[symes]

I do not like unpaid sick leave in some industries - particularly nurses, healthcare workers and the like. It means people are more likely to work when they are ill, forced to by financial concerns. Not good when they are dealing with people who are vulnerable. Same is true, to some extent, for bus drivers. Driving a bunch of people around while suffering from fever, etc., is going to effect their ability to drive. There's probably a compromise, such that drivers get 50% pay when ill. But would still prefer to see someone not drive me around while suffering from poor health. So what is good for workers and unions can also be good for customers as well.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

It boggles my mind that in the richest country in the world, there is even debate over this. The rest of the world has already realized that of course someone shouldn't lose their house or their job because they got the flu.

Re:Sick

[Virtucon]

Richest by getting rid of basic things like paid sick leave and turning workers into temps or "contract workers." In this instance I wish the teamsters luck because having drivers sit all day as "down time" when then can't really do anything else except hang around the bus and not get paid is also pretty fucked up.

Re:Sick

[Joe_Dragon]

also if they want a doctors note they better pay for it and be willing to wait for the doctor to have a open time.

Re:Sick

[hey!]

Well, this "richest country in the world" business is somewhat misleading. It means the country with the greatest aggregate economic power, not the country where people tend to be the best off. You need to look at several measures before you can begin to understand the thing that's mystifying you.

By total GDP the US is by far the wealthiest nation in the world. It has almost twice the total GDP of the second country on the list, China. By *per capita* GDP, the US is about 10th on the list, just below Switzerland; so by global standards the typical American is wealthy, but not the wealthiest. On the other hand the US ranks about 20th in cost of living, so the typical American has it pretty good.

Where things get interesting is if you look at GINI -- a measure of economic disparity. The most equal countries are of course the Scandinavians, with Denmark, Sweden and Norway topping the list. The US is far from the *least* equal (Seychelles, South Africa, and Comoros), but it is kind of surprising when you look at countries near the US on the list. Normally in most economic measures you see the US ranked near advanced industrialized countries in Europe, but it's neighbors on the GINI list are places like Turkmenistan, Qatar, and El Salvador.

What this means is that we have significant classes on either end of the scale: the *very* wealthy and an economic underclass. Now because of the total wealth sloshing around in the US, the US underclass has it pretty well compared to the underclass in, say, India. But what this doesn't buy is clout or respect. "Poor" households in the US usually have TVs and refrigerators -- a fact that seems to anger some people, who see the poor in the US as ungrateful people who are too lazy to improve themselves. But a study by the OECD suggests that they don't have the *time* to improve themselves. In a ranking of countries by time spend on leisure and self-care the US ranks 33rd, at 14.3 hours lagging almost two hours per day behind world leader Denmark (big surprise). But remember this is an average; it doesn't represent the time available for the poor.

Most Americans seem to think that poor people spend all their time sitting around waiting for handouts. This willfully ignores the phenomenon of the working poor. After selling my company, I volunteered on a lark at a charity which refurbishes old furniture and household stuff and furnishes the homes of poor people, and I found poor people to be neither lazy nor ungrateful. Let me tell you I have never met so many people who work two or sometimes more jobs. Particularly shocking were the number of women who took their children out of abusive relationships, and then have to work a full time job, raise three or four kids, without a car and in a neighborhood that doesn't have a grocery store. You don't know what gratitude is until you've given a poor, overtaxed mother beds when her children have been sleeping on the floor for months.

When some smug, ignorant and conspicuously well-fed media head starts whining about the poor having refrigerators, it makes me want to punch them in the mouth.

Re:Sick

[geoskd]

If I had mod points, I'd have modded you up.

I grew up as the only conservative in a family of upper middle class liberals. It always infuriated me that poor people were constantly getting free stuff, and I bought in to the whole poor people are lazy mentality. Once I graduated, I found myself working in a company that employs a great deal of the bottom of society. (I started there myself thanks to the collapse in '01). I was lucky enough to have a good family watching out for me, and I didn't stay on the bottom long, but I've been there. As a result of my experiences, I have moved much farther left on the spectrum, but I will note a few things here that need to be said.

First, I find far more lazy people in the middle classes than on the bottom or the top. Those on the top work hard because they are driven (this is what gets them to the top). Those on the bottom work hard because they have to in order to survive. They often have no hope, and no future because we have built the system in this country to virtually guarantee their continued failure. Those in the middle have the breathing room to be lazy, and some of them are. Unions historically protect all of their employees equally, which is mostly taken advantage of by the lazy members (definitely not the majority of union members, but a noticeable minority). It is this enabling power of unions that pisses people off about them. Unions need to stop protecting lazy workers. This is critical to their continued support from the rest of society. Unions have to take steps to ensure that their lazy members are compensated equitably to the effort they put in. A stupid lazy union member should not get paid the same as a motivated intelligent union member when all other factors are equal. That trait of unions is pretty much the only real reason anyone is opposed to unions in the first place. All other reasons are essentially window dressing around the real issue.

We need to stop giving money to the poor. They don't need money. What they need is a systematic, comprehensive, plan for how to get them off the bottom. The single biggest factor keeping poor people poor, is the responsibility for children. As noted, often times, a parent finds themselves as the sole caregiver for children, and they are consequently trapped, as the responsibilities of childrearing often conflict with the responsibilities that employers would place upon employees (such as reliable attendance, and schedule flexibility). The simplest solution to the problem would be to do away with welfare and unemployment benefits entirely and replace them with guaranteed services for their dependents such as 50 hours of weekly daycare, Free medical services for dependents, Three daily meals for dependents. All of those services combined would be cheaper than welfare and would provide far more benefit to society. Individuals, when freed from many of the responsibilities of dependent care, would be far more able to work the kinds of schedules that employers want/need. Being only financially responsible for themselves would allow them to choose better paths for their own career advancement (including continuing education), that would otherwise be impossible to manage while being primary caregiver.

Mind you I am not proposing making these options available only to the poor, I am proposing that society provide that level of service for all its citizens as a way to level the playing field for all parties. In the end, it will only help the next generation, when they don't have to grow up seeing their parent(s) trapped in poverty with no hope of escape, and no obvious way that the children can avoid the same fate.

Re:Sick

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Look at Sweden for example. What you're stating simply isn't true. In 2013, 15.9% of the population was born outside of Sweden.
Anyone in the EU is free to settle in any other EU contry (Sweden is a EU country, just as Romania).
Anyone from outside the EU is free to work in Sweden provided that they can show an offer of employment with a monthly salary of at least 13000 sek
(about 1560 usd), and after four years they can apply for permanent residency.

The diffrence is a welfare state and unions.

In related news...

[tlambert]

In related news... Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga will decide whether or not they will contract their transportation services from someone other than Compass Transportation Monday.

Welcome to an "at will" state, Teamsters!

Re:In related news...

[Virtucon]

Well if I worked for any of those companies and utilized these buses, I'd want to make sure that the guys at the wheel were at least satisfied with what they were doing and not ill nor overworked; especially if I had to put my life in their hands.

... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

This is perhaps one of the most stupid places the teamsters could possibly make a push.

Nothing is going to inspire the likes of google and apple to build driveless cars faster than getting dicked around with by these retrograde knuckle dragging union goons.

The teamsters have lots of union works across the country that drive things. Most of their customers don't own design teams working on driverless cars. If they poke a stick in google and apple's eye over this issue they're just going to redouble their efforts.

And what happens when they succeed? Not only will the teamsters lose Silicon Valley which will have all its people driven around by robots... but their other union members all over the country will probably start losing their jobs as well. Because the various companies that employ them won't have to pay union scale anymore. They can pay robot scale. Which is low. No healthcare. No overtime. No paid vacations. No pensions.

And THAT is the company you want to piss off? This is straight up idiocy. Whomever is running the teamsters is a fucktard.

Which isn't surprising to me. My father had to negotiate with them once. Company he worked for assigned him to talk to a teamster negociator that the union had brought in to talk to the company. My dad didn't really have authority to do anything. He was just listening to the proposal so he could relay it back to management.

Anyway, the teamster guy was a giant red faced baboon that basically tried to physically intimidate my dad. My dad is not a large or physical man. He's an intellectual type guy... quiet, reasonable, believes in being nice just because. And this asshole teamster in a simple query of terms thought it was reasonable to imply he was going to beat my father up. I mean... what the fuck?

Anyway... management responded by giving the union everything they asked for. Literally everything. They just said yes down the line. Win for the teamsters right? Well, management was also massively pissed off. So they immediately started setting up an alternative operation. Takes years to set up. But the new contract would be in force for years. When the contract expired, the union sent the same asshole to ask for even more stuff. The company responded by firing them all and relocating the operation to the new site.

Does that suck? Yep. Ideally it would be nice if differences could have been resolved. But the teamsters don't negotiate. They make demands. And if you don't give them what they want, then they go into full primate mode... turning tables over, beating their chest, humping various things, throwing their poop around... and basically doing everything they can to burn all their bridges.

They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.

And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing growth in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak. The unions killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because they gave themselves

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Phillip2]

As the article points out, this is not a big cost for the companies involved. Unionisation of the buses is not going to make the slightest bit of difference whatsoever to Google's desire to generate a self-driving vehicle. The market is enormous, so they have all the incentive in the world.

What is going to make a difference to these companies is some degree of collective action. We know that many SV companies have been involved in collection action in the past, with non-compete agreements to keep wages of high-skilled workers low. It is a good thing if the shoe is on the other foot for a while. The only real sad thing is that this is unlikely to spread to where it is really needed -- in the third world sweat shop supply chains.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Jack Griffin]

Thanks for the rant. I hate the modern incarnation of the Unions as much as the next guy, but don't think for one moment that Google or Apple is the hero of the story that will come and save the day with their flying/driverless/superinvincibility car. That shit will never work, and if they could fuck you over just as bad they would.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Of course not. When big national unions come in to take over labor its all roses and rainbows. The flayed men and pyres of burning bodies come later.

I judge the teamsters by their previous conduct and their reputation in other markets. As any rational person should when judging such an organization. They have a long standing reputation which people I personally know can attest to of intimidation, unreasonable demands, and basically leveraging any bargaining position past the point of breakage.

They're the sort of union that if they don't get what they want they sometimes break equipment, throw bricks through windows with murder threats on them, and other fucking insane bullshit.

Were this a union group without that reputation then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the teamsters. They've a reputation of being rough with people that don't give them what they want. And the reality is that no one has patience for that shit anymore. These old unions still think it is the 1930s. It isn't. And if they try to start slapping around the likes of Google/Apple with this shit... they're going to get replaced with robots.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[bickerdyke]

>

In the end, its gone anyway. that's just the future and you can't fight it. But pissing off people that can make it happen faster is what a complete fool does. [...] slapping people around that are building the machines that will replace them... is moronic. And that is apparently their little brainchild.

Is it really moronic? If the end of your business line is forseeable within the next few years, it might be the better idea to go all in and grab as much as you can, as long as the "machine that will replace you" has NOT been constructed yet.

Yes, It may speed up the end a year or two, but is that really such a big difference? Grab what you can get as long as you still have the chance.

I think that's called "exit strategy".

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Krishnoid]

They're the sort of union that if they don't get what they want they sometimes break equipment, throw bricks through windows with murder threats on them, and other fucking insane bullshit.

Were this a union group without that reputation then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the teamsters. They've a reputation of being rough with people that don't give them what they want. And the reality is that no one has patience for that shit anymore.

Or the anonymity, for that matter -- approaching a Google Street View car from any direction, probably results in enough images being captured of you from enough angles to turn your vandalism attempt into a scene from the Matrix. If they haven't matured out of that old-school kind of approach even today, a little technology may not be sufficient to get them to change their ways fast enough.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

They used to save lives. Like a lot of things that had a point once... their time has past.

I mentioned several times that unions have done some really good things in the past. And really, I have no problem with unions in principle. However, there are bad unions that need to just die. And the teamsters are on that list.

The teamsters, the dock workers, the auto workers union, and a couple others are not helping anyone besides the union leadership. Pissing off the companies or making it unprofitable to operate in various areas doesn't help the workers. It costs jobs and closes factories and encourages outsourcing.

If the unions stuck to making sure work environments were safe they wouldn't have the reputation they've earned.

You're going to have to deal with that reputation. Is google full of angels? Nope... but they're not full of retarded assholes either. And the teamsters is that.

Again... they have a rep. And my father personally dealt with them and confirms it.

My father just so you understand probably one of the most peaceful kind quiet men you'll ever meet in your life. As I said above, the company he was working for sent him to get the teamster's terms from their negotiator and the guy basically suggested he was going to beat my father up... In the conference room.

They're fucking baboons. You want to tell me about the good things unions do? I'm not talking about all unions. I'm talking about THAT union and any union like them. There are a bunch of unions that have a bad reputation of intimidation, vandalism, extortion, and general thuggery. Not all unions have that reputation. There are lots of unions that are on great terms with their industry partners and always have been. These are the unions that understand that the only way they get paid is if the company makes money and if business happens. They go to negotiating tables and understand they're not going to get everything they want.

Look at the shit the dock workers union is pulling RIGHT NOW. Its going to cost the US economy around 30 or so billion dollars and that was as of the last time I checked. And why? Because the wages they're getting paid that lots of people would fucking kill for aren't enough.

And here is my big problem with unions like that... often there is no alternative. It is a monopoly on labor.

If at the very least a given company could bargain between a few competing unions then at least they might be able to have a REAL negotiation. But when only ONE organization controls ALL the labor... you're fucked. The union knows you're fucked. And so the stupid ones fuck you. And companies don't like to get fucked. You fuck them enough and they start to think of ANY way what so ever out of that situation.

And while it might take some time... they tend to find a way out. The Unions that have been losing membership for generations are largely doing so because they over played their hands. There are several unions that haven't lost that much membership. Oh yes. Unions that are roughly as strong as they ever were... and they tend to have much better relationships with everyone because they don't play power games. Most of these unions represent skilled labor and the unions tend to restrict themselves to setting safety policy or working conditions. They actually tend to avoid involving themselves in wage negotiations leaving that up their members to work out individually. I know, that seems odd. But such unions exist.

And they do what you said... they save lives. That is where they start and that is where they stop. If the teamsters did that, they'd have a much different reputation. But they don't... and they have the rep they have.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Your comment doesn't make sense. I didn't say there was a by gone era when unions were not controversial and no one had a problem with them. Just because the Pinkertons got called on the unions or the president was literally called in to break a strike doesn't mean they weren't doing something genuinely good.

And just because they're pissing people off today doesn't mean they're doing anything useful what so ever.

Pissing people off is not a measure of one's value to society.

Sometimes really good people that are doing really good things piss a lot of people off. And sometimes you're just an asshole.

My statement was that at one time they were doing something good... then they took those good things that had been done and thought they were an eternal license to be jackasses for the rest of time. And as a result, there are quite a few unions that no one likes.

Find me someone that likes the dockworker's union for example. They're universal assholes.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

That's fine... if they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. We'll see.

So, does that response mean you are applying their reputation from the 30s, rather than basing your comment on recent behavior?

Re:... Driverless cars?

[PPalmgren]

Unions generally don't mature from their inception, its kind of a self-selective process. The goal of union leadership is more bodies, more pay, and more dues. As a result, they are inherently anti-progress, anti-tech, and anti-change. If they tried to align more with the companies they work with in setting production goals instead of man-hour quotas, I think the relationships would be much more amicable. Another poster got it right that the problem is with 'monopoly unions' or unions that control the labor force of an entire industry with no competition and sometimes no competition/advancement allowed (forced via contracts). In those situations, the most high-profile being the Teamsters, UAW, and the two coastwide Longshore unions, its about the union and the union only, industry be damned. Then people wonder why GM and Chrysler had to be bailed out, hostess crashes and burns, and several shipping terminals go bankrupt.

On another note, I feel the adversarial process is the bane of the 20th/21st centuries. It has turned prosecution/defense into a farce, it creates uncooperative industry issues like the unions/companies mentioned above, and it has turned congress into a wasted existence. Too many lawyers are bringing the adversarial process into places where it doesn't belong and ruining any chance of cooperation and advancement.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[PPalmgren]

Mod parent up. On the discussion of safety regarding dock workers, you are correct in that they have actually gone so far that they make it less safe. The unions are so terrified of any kind of automation removing jobs that they refuse tech advancements that take the workers off the dock and put them in offices operating remotely, which takes them out of harm's way. It is very common in Europe but doesn't happen in the US.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[hendrips]

You are damning them with faint praise, I think. I've worked at a place with "strict enforcement of a seniority system" before, and it was a nightmare. I will not work at any company with such a strict seniority policy if I can help it at all.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[hey!]

I wonder how much direct or even second-hand knowledge of unions you have.

In my family we've been on both sides of this issue. My sister, who is an RN, just recently led a successful but bitterly contested unionization drive of her hospital. The impetus for bringing in the union was that after privatization the hospital cut staff so much the nurses feared for patient safety. Nurses don't just administer medicine and make beds; one of the most important things they do is catch mistakes. When a surgeon starts prepping the wrong limb for amputation or an internist accidentally prescribes a medication that will kill the patient. It's nurse's job to catch that. It was unequivocally fear of making mistakes that drove the nurses at that hospital to unionize.

Did she piss off the hospital's new owners? You bet she did. But would you rather go to a hospital where the nurses *lost* that fight? How would you feel about the nurse checking your medications had worked back-to-back weeks of double shifts caring for more patients than she (or he) can keep track of?

On the other hand my brother is a senior executive at a large food service company. He told me about a meeting he had with a local African-American union representative where she played the race card with the first words out of her mouth. This was pointlessly antagonistic, in part because while my brother is a conservative he's open-minded and has a good track record of working with the unions. But mostly pointless because we're not white. We can pass, but as the genealogist in the family recently figured out we have only about 1/3 European ancestry. Fortunately he could laugh that off but if he'd been white and thinner-skinned that might have driven the negotiations into a ditch.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Sir_Eptishous]

I have a good friend whom I've known for years who is a Teamster. To be honest, I feel your ridiculous and long winded account of Teamsters is quite off the mark.
Perhaps if you saw and heard things from the other side you might change your opinion. But I doubt it. It appears you already know everything their is to know about what it's like to be a Teamster, and what they put up with. Thanks for that shower of wisdom.

Again, my knowledge about their job isn't first person, just coming from what my very good friend has told me for the last twenty years or so. I can tell you this though, your 1970's era opinions of unions being all powerful are about as anachronistic as holding up your lighter during Freebird at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.

My friend has described in detail how they continue to "get fucked" everytime their new contracts come up. And yes, he tells me the details of thier contracts, what has changed, how it used to be, etc; He actually doesn't like telling me most of it, but I'm quite interested in how that process works, how they negotiate, etc;

The Teamsters don't get their cake and eat it to, as those with a Mussoliniesque political bent would have everyone believe.
Unioins, and especially the Teamsters are a pale shadow of their former selves.

Now to the real point.
Yes, we will have driverless vehicles in the not too distant future.
Yes, most if not all of the driving professions will disappear quite rapidly after that happens.
Yes, that will put even more people out of work, with no or little hope of a future profession now that their livelihood has disappeared.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

They are drivers not coders. We can build a metric to rank them. (Packages/hour - (SafetyWeight * accidents/year)) would work for drivers with similar routes.

At UPS they incent performance for drivers in ways that don't interfere with the seniority system.

Accident handling is pretty simple: If you have one, barring really, really clear evidence that it's not only not your fault but there is no possible way you could have avoided it, you're fired. The Teamsters lawyer will fight to get you a decent severance package, but that's it. Even with said evidence, you'd better not ever have another.

As for packages/per hour, UPS has a system that calculates the time required for a given route, including driving and deliveries. Drivers get paid max(route_time, actual_time), so if they can get the route done in less than the estimated time they get to go home early without losing pay. Experienced drivers can always beat the estimated time, usually by large margins, and even in the event of breakdowns, etc.

Further, habitually beating your route time gives you the opportunity to take on longer routes. So, many good UPS drivers habitually do 12-hour routes in 7 hours, which means they get paid for 14 hours (the last four of the 12 are time and a half) for working 7. Meanwhile, drivers who habitually take longer than their estimated times get assigned shorter and shorter routes, and, of course, there is a point at which drivers are taking so much longer than the estimate, that they can be fired for cause.

BTW, if you have the perception that UPS drivers are well-paid, you're both wrong and right. Their nominal hourly wages are decent, maxing out at around $20 per hour or a bit above, but those who work hard can easily earn lots of "fake" overtime, as in my example of 14 hours' pay for 7 hours' work. That plus massive amounts of real overtime around the holidays means that UPS drivers' incomes can approach six figures -- but only if they work hard.

Re:Split Shifts

[jpapon]

The best solution to union meddling concerning the split shifts is to employ half of the drivers in the morning and the other half in the evening.

This has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read.

Tell me genius, how are you going to drive the same amount of buses with half the employees on a shift? Or are you under the impression that people can drive two buses at once?

Re:Wait..

[Entrope]

Unless a state passes a right-to-work law (California has not), "closed shops" are allowed under Federal law and typically required by union contracts. A "closed shop" agreement means that employees must be union members at the time of hire, or must join the union within a certain period. To conform with the First Amendment, employees who do not wish to pay for the union's "extra" activities (beyond collective negotiation for their bargaining unit that the employee belongs to) can opt out of full union membership and pay a reduced rate for the union's representation. The reduction is almost never a big reduction, which might surprise people who know how much unions spend on political activity. Also, people who do opt out can no longer vote on what the union should negotiate for, and unions like to make them social outcasts, so there are strong incentives to not opt out.

Samzenpus reminding you to hate the unions!

[damn_registrars]

Because it would, of course, be a terrible thing if drivers were well qualified, reasonably paid, and respected by their employers. Really, who doesn't wish they could work 70+ hours a week for 35 hours of pay? And job stability is so 1950s...

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

> It takes 16+ years of education to get a Master's degree. It takes less than 16 months to get a commercial driver's license. That fact is embedded in tech workers wages.

Someone with education of a Master's degree messes up work: sorry for the bug, we'll release a hotfix patch or a service pack soon, we thank you for your patience in the while!

Someone with commercial driver's license messes up work: CNN breaking news, schoolbus careens into river, two dozen kids missing. In other news, 18-wheeler carrying barrels of concentrated fluoric acid explodes upon collision with town hall, 20 dead, 750 citizens evacuated, national guard mobilized, FEMA sets up local command centre.

It is also not OK that LGBT hairdressers earn seven figures a year, while garbage collectors earn 15 USD / hour. No garbage collection => megacity soon depopulated by diseases. No LBGT hairdresser => put a pot over your head and cut off what sticks out! The free world / western / americanized capitalist society is totally fsck'ed up when it comes to moral values and labour relations. The managers become little divine kings in their palaces and luxury sedans and flying chariot, while many common people become more and more like peasants or even serfs. The decadent and hedonistic first world is heading to a crash soon, one which will eclipse that of ancient Roman Empire.

After that comes a new Dark Age, where the equally insane asian-despotic, planned economy regime principle will be the celebrated leitmotif and China or Putinistan will act as role models for most of the world. Is there a need for history to repeat itself over and over again, as if mandated by a natural law? Isn't it possible create stable and just societies everywhere, like Scandinavia, where respect for the common good makes everybody's life for the better?

Union membership is a good idea

[badzilla]

Some people have an irrational and emotional dislike of trade unions and are not afraid to show it, with words such as fools, idiots, morons, and so on. Crispin Odey the president of a 12-billion-dollar hedge fund would like to disagree with you: “... there is huge value in being in a union at the moment.” http://moneyweek.com/merryns-b...

Sure, Blame The Unions

[Greyfox]

Short sighted leadership making cars no one wanted had nothing to do with it.

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Rich0]

A better example of a coding error might be this one.