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| Jimmy Maerina |
The drivers work from dawn to well past dusk, with six hours at the yard in between shifts. Their employer, Loop Transportation, refuses to recognize the Teamsters as their representative.
Teamsters Local 853 President Rome Aloise sent a letter to Zuckerberg last week. Aloise is also president of Joint Council 7 and an international vice president for the Teamsters.
USA Today reported,
...the top Teamsters official for Northern California has sent a letter urging Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to "encourage" its contractor to allow the drivers to "bargain a fair contract."
"It is reminiscent of a time when noblemen were driven around in their coaches by their servants. Frankly, little has changed; except the noblemen are your employees, and the servants are the bus drivers who carry them back and forth each day," Teamsters official Rome Aloise wrote to Zuckerberg.
This is the second time the Teamsters have tried to organize the Facebook drivers, but the first time the union has gotten a majority of Facebook shuttle drivers to sign cards asking Local 853 to represent them.Jimmy Maerina told the New York Times, he leaves home at 5 a.m. and returns at 9 p.m.
“You spend 16 hours a day — no time for family, no time for the kids,” Mr. Maerina said. “When I leave home in the morning, my kids are sleeping, and when I get home at 9, they’re done with their homework.”
Mr. Maerina, who earns $18 an hour and was out temporarily with an injury, said his 51-passenger bus had been attacked by San Francisco residents who resent highly paid high-tech workers pushing up rents and gentrifying neighborhoods, forcing out some longtime residents. “It’s very hard for me to make ends meet,” he added. “Housing costs are crazy in the Bay Area.”Read the letter sent by Brother Aloise at http://ibt.io/finkd.
