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I have a really hard time understanding the union's position. The problem is stated by the CEO of the contracting company very clearly: > Jeff Leonoudakis, pre

by GuiA 12y ago

I have a really hard time understanding the union's position. The problem is stated by the CEO of the contracting company very clearly: > Jeff Leonoudakis, president of Facebook’s shuttle bus contractor, Loop Transportation, said many Facebook drivers earned $18 to $20 an hour. > “We believe that we take really good care of our drivers,” Mr. Leonoudakis said. “They’re the heart of our company. Without them, we can’t provide service to our customers.” > He also said Loop provided a generous medical and dental insurance plan. > “We pay overtime, which most of our competitors do not pay,” Mr. Leonoudakis added, noting that the company provided vacations, sick leave and holiday pay. > “In keeping with the fact that we provide this high level of wages and benefits to our drivers, I don’t think the union is necessary in this case,” he said. > Mr. Leonoudakis acknowledged that the split shifts were a strain for drivers. > “The split shift is a necessity — that’s what our customers are asking for,” he said. “We are trying to make the conditions as pleasant and comfortable as we can.” > He added, “I don’t have an answer for” the split-shift problem. “I don’t think anyone in the industry does.” The drivers are well compensated, have benefits, and are treated well. The only problem is that the job requires a split shift, but not much can be done about that. The company's already having a hard time being competitive with contracts - putting 2 drivers per shift would probably make the company non-competitive for contracts. The job has a clear downside, but that's just how it is and the company tries to make it as comfortable for the employees as it can. If it's really a problem for the employees, isn't that where the free labor market would allow them to quit their job and look for something more in tune with their preferences? I'm looking forward to replies to my comment because I'm having a hard time seeing the magical cure here. There's a problem (transporting employees requires drivers), a company emerges to solve it, and compensates employees at a value more or less determined by what the job is worth ($20 an hour, which is roughly between a job at McDonald's making burgers ($10/hour) and a job as a middle class white collar worker ($30/hour)). Realistically, what can be done better here in the short term? What is the union going to bring to this economic conundrum?

fubu 12y ago
A Union Rep. Its something, I imagine, people who have never been in a Union have no real concept off. As an employee you have onsite representation. All the grey area nonsense that people in many industries deal with fades away when you have a clear, detailed and most importantly enforceable contractual agreement of what your employment does and does not include. When your boss tells you that you have to do something, you can text your Rep and ask them. It sounds simple but it is really incredible peace of mind to have. They might say "I know it stinks but you do", but at least you have that peace of mind knowing that you are working within the bounds of the contract you and your fellow workers agreed to.
rtpg 12y ago
I think the crux of the issue is that $20 an hour is not enough to live anywhere near SF in those areas. Combined with the split shift, this means that basically 16 hours a day of these people's lives are booked. So even if these people were willing to work 2 fulltime jobs to cover this issue (an idea so absurd anywhere outside of America we should be ashamed), they can't because of the hours. 1 solution is to hire two sets of drivers (allowing these people to find another part- or full-time job to compensate). Another is to pay them more for the split shift issue (not to mention the large quality of life impact from the schedule). This is _not_ an ideal job for anybody.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "I think the crux of the issue is that $20 an hour is not enough to live anywhere near SF in those areas. Combined with the split shift, this means that basically 16 hours a day of these people's lives are booked." So don't live there! It's not like there isn't a huge country here. If people go take jobs elsewhere, the price people are willing to pay to get people to take these jobs here will go up. If not there is a glut of people willing to take these jobs at almost any price, in which case, honestly, you can't solve this problem (and it is likely we will, in the not too distant future, soon have too many people for all possible jobs that people are needed for) This idea that people have a magical right to simultaneously live wherever they want, and get paid enough to live comfortably there is somewhat ridiculous and impossible to fulfill. There will always be places that are more expensive due to demand. It's not like this is the first time in history (even of the US!) this has ever happened. What happens is people go instead where they can afford to live. Then either pay goes up to attract people to the high demand area, or it becomes less in demand. If i could not afford to live in the bay area with what the bay area was willing to pay me, i would move somewhere cheaper. There are plenty of jobs in the US that are ready for the taking, pay reasonable rates, and are in places that are affordable. People often just consider themselves too good to take them.
  - jmckib 12y ago
jackowayed 12y ago
Per hour rate seems somewhat misleading given the split shift. There's 15 hours between the start of their work and the end of their work, and the gap in their day is short enough that they often can't make great use of their break. If you were to consider all of that hard-to-use time as time on the job (since the job is the reason it's being underutilized), it would cut their effective rate almost in half. Imagine someone hired you for a job where they wanted you 10 minutes out of every 20--10 minutes working, 10 minutes off, repeat. You might have a day where you clock 6 hours, but it would essentially be a 12-hour day at a job with a lot of stops and starts. Whatever rate they claimed to pay you would be inflated by two because they were only paying you for half of your time. I'm guessing something that granular is illegal, but the split shift acts similarly; there's a big difference between working a 9-hour day straight (say with one 45-min meal break) than working a 9-hour day with a 6-hour gap in the middle, so the latter should be more highly compensated. And so it's not necessarily an economic conundrum. There's no magical market law that says there is no bus-driving labor that could be worth more than $20 per active hour driving. Bus drivers want better compensation (or at least accommodations that make the gaps more useful to them, such as bunk beds). Facebook is surely willing to pay some amount more than they are now to continue the bus service (evidence: increased costs such as SF's new pickup fee have not stopped bus service from growing). So Facebook could pay more due to increased driver compensation or accommodation cost, the drivers could in turn be paid more or be better accommodated, and everyone would be getting more out of the economic deal than they're putting in. The union would do what unions always do--shift some of the economic surplus that the company is currently enjoying (paying less for the bus service than the value it provides) to the workers.
- jmckib 12y ago
  > The union would do what unions always do--shift some of the economic surplus that the company is currently enjoying (paying less for the bus service than the value it provides) to the workers. One thing worth mentioning here: if prices are determined by the free market they can serve as a valuable signal to increase or decrease supply in response to demand. It may well be that in the future these bus drivers could serve a more useful purpose elsewhere in society, but the signal to do that would be dampened by artificially high wages to bus drivers. Price signals are the reason our society is relatively efficient compared to, say, the Soviet Union. In conclusion, I think OP is right, if these bus drivers don't like the compensation they're getting they should look for work somewhere else, just like the rest of us. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/InformationandPrices.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/InformationandPrices.html
elastine 12y ago
It is fundamentally oppressive and undemocratic to deny free men the chance to voluntary come together to collectively bargain for their rights. This collective bargaining is called a union. What is your problem with a group of people choosing to organize this way?
- repsilat 12y ago
  It is fundamentally oppressive and undemocratic to deny free men the chance to voluntary come together to collectively set the prices for the services they're selling. This collective bargaining is called price-fixing.* This isn't a clear-cut issue of rights that can be settled on principle. Workers have been given the right to collectively fix prices through unions not because it's a fundamental freedom, but because it has been recognised that employees negotiate from a position of relative weakness to their employer.
hrktb 12y ago
> I have a really hard time understanding the union's position. The problem is stated by the CEO of the contracting company very clearly I think it boils down to this. The union's position is not thoroughly explained, while the author seems to have very good access to the contracting company's CEO. That the CEO has poor opinion of union's request and present facts in a positive light for his company is a given. Now we need the other side's arguments explained first hand.
boomlinde 12y ago
> If it's really a problem for the employees, isn't that where the free labor market would allow them to quit their job and look for something more in tune with their preferences? A free labor market would certainly allow workers to unionize to leverage their power and pursue their own capitalist goals by whatever means the market allows them. A free labor market should recognize the workers as important actors in that market. I'm not sure why unions seem like such an appalling idea to capitalist idealists.
- Daishiman 12y ago
  Because "capitalist idealists" is usually a covert concept for oligarch's ideals.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I'm not sure why unions seem like such an appalling idea to capitalist idealists. For the same reason capitalism was named "capitalism" by its critics (a name later adopted by its supporters) -- because it is a system in which society is ordered to serve the interests of capitalists first and foremost.
  - QuantumChaos 12y ago
    I think that when people argue against unions, they are usually implicitly arguing against the moral duty of the company to concede to the unions demands, or to allow the union to form (assuming they could legally prevent the union from forming). They are not arguing against the right of the union to try to achieve better wages or conditions, or arguing it is immoral to do so. It is quite easy to be a principled proponent of free markets, no matter who they benefit in a particular instance. It is quite a stretch to say that anyone who claims to adhere to this principle is really an agent of the capitalists.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      I'm not making a generalization about people who are opposed to unions (much less your clever interpretation about what people who are opposed yo unions are really opposed to, though I don't think that that interpretation is at all consistent with as NY of the anti-union arguments I've ever heard, much less a reasonable description of the general basis of such opposition). I was making a generaluzation about "capitalist idealists" and what it means to be one.

by GuiA 12y ago

fubu 12y ago

A Union Rep. Its something, I imagine, people who have never been in a Union have no real concept off. As an employee you have onsite representation. All the grey area nonsense that people in many industries deal with fades away when you have a clear, detailed and most importantly enforceable contractual agreement of what your employment does and does not include. When your boss tells you that you have to do something, you can text your Rep and ask them. It sounds simple but it is really incredible peace of mind to have. They might say "I know it stinks but you do", but at least you have that peace of mind knowing that you are working within the bounds of the contract you and your fellow workers agreed to.

rtpg 12y ago

I think the crux of the issue is that $20 an hour is not enough to live anywhere near SF in those areas. Combined with the split shift, this means that basically 16 hours a day of these people's lives are booked. So even if these people were willing to work 2 fulltime jobs to cover this issue (an idea so absurd anywhere outside of America we should be ashamed), they can't because of the hours. 1 solution is to hire two sets of drivers (allowing these people to find another part- or full-time job to compensate). Another is to pay them more for the split shift issue (not to mention the large quality of life impact from the schedule). This is _not_ an ideal job for anybody.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
DannyBee 12y ago
"I think the crux of the issue is that $20 an hour is not enough to live anywhere near SF in those areas. Combined with the split shift, this means that basically 16 hours a day of these people's lives are booked." So don't live there! It's not like there isn't a huge country here. If people go take jobs elsewhere, the price people are willing to pay to get people to take these jobs here will go up. If not there is a glut of people willing to take these jobs at almost any price, in which case, honestly, you can't solve this problem (and it is likely we will, in the not too distant future, soon have too many people for all possible jobs that people are needed for) This idea that people have a magical right to simultaneously live wherever they want, and get paid enough to live comfortably there is somewhat ridiculous and impossible to fulfill. There will always be places that are more expensive due to demand. It's not like this is the first time in history (even of the US!) this has ever happened. What happens is people go instead where they can afford to live. Then either pay goes up to attract people to the high demand area, or it becomes less in demand. If i could not afford to live in the bay area with what the bay area was willing to pay me, i would move somewhere cheaper. There are plenty of jobs in the US that are ready for the taking, pay reasonable rates, and are in places that are affordable. People often just consider themselves too good to take them.
- jmckib 12y ago

jackowayed 12y ago

Per hour rate seems somewhat misleading given the split shift. There's 15 hours between the start of their work and the end of their work, and the gap in their day is short enough that they often can't make great use of their break. If you were to consider all of that hard-to-use time as time on the job (since the job is the reason it's being underutilized), it would cut their effective rate almost in half. Imagine someone hired you for a job where they wanted you 10 minutes out of every 20--10 minutes working, 10 minutes off, repeat. You might have a day where you clock 6 hours, but it would essentially be a 12-hour day at a job with a lot of stops and starts. Whatever rate they claimed to pay you would be inflated by two because they were only paying you for half of your time. I'm guessing something that granular is illegal, but the split shift acts similarly; there's a big difference between working a 9-hour day straight (say with one 45-min meal break) than working a 9-hour day with a 6-hour gap in the middle, so the latter should be more highly compensated. And so it's not necessarily an economic conundrum. There's no magical market law that says there is no bus-driving labor that could be worth more than $20 per active hour driving. Bus drivers want better compensation (or at least accommodations that make the gaps more useful to them, such as bunk beds). Facebook is surely willing to pay some amount more than they are now to continue the bus service (evidence: increased costs such as SF's new pickup fee have not stopped bus service from growing). So Facebook could pay more due to increased driver compensation or accommodation cost, the drivers could in turn be paid more or be better accommodated, and everyone would be getting more out of the economic deal than they're putting in. The union would do what unions always do--shift some of the economic surplus that the company is currently enjoying (paying less for the bus service than the value it provides) to the workers.

jmckib 12y ago
> The union would do what unions always do--shift some of the economic surplus that the company is currently enjoying (paying less for the bus service than the value it provides) to the workers. One thing worth mentioning here: if prices are determined by the free market they can serve as a valuable signal to increase or decrease supply in response to demand. It may well be that in the future these bus drivers could serve a more useful purpose elsewhere in society, but the signal to do that would be dampened by artificially high wages to bus drivers. Price signals are the reason our society is relatively efficient compared to, say, the Soviet Union. In conclusion, I think OP is right, if these bus drivers don't like the compensation they're getting they should look for work somewhere else, just like the rest of us. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/InformationandPrices.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/InformationandPrices.html

elastine 12y ago

It is fundamentally oppressive and undemocratic to deny free men the chance to voluntary come together to collectively bargain for their rights. This collective bargaining is called a union. What is your problem with a group of people choosing to organize this way?

repsilat 12y ago
It is fundamentally oppressive and undemocratic to deny free men the chance to voluntary come together to collectively set the prices for the services they're selling. This collective bargaining is called price-fixing.* This isn't a clear-cut issue of rights that can be settled on principle. Workers have been given the right to collectively fix prices through unions not because it's a fundamental freedom, but because it has been recognised that employees negotiate from a position of relative weakness to their employer.

hrktb 12y ago

> I have a really hard time understanding the union's position. The problem is stated by the CEO of the contracting company very clearly I think it boils down to this. The union's position is not thoroughly explained, while the author seems to have very good access to the contracting company's CEO. That the CEO has poor opinion of union's request and present facts in a positive light for his company is a given. Now we need the other side's arguments explained first hand.

boomlinde 12y ago

> If it's really a problem for the employees, isn't that where the free labor market would allow them to quit their job and look for something more in tune with their preferences? A free labor market would certainly allow workers to unionize to leverage their power and pursue their own capitalist goals by whatever means the market allows them. A free labor market should recognize the workers as important actors in that market. I'm not sure why unions seem like such an appalling idea to capitalist idealists.

Daishiman 12y ago
Because "capitalist idealists" is usually a covert concept for oligarch's ideals.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> I'm not sure why unions seem like such an appalling idea to capitalist idealists. For the same reason capitalism was named "capitalism" by its critics (a name later adopted by its supporters) -- because it is a system in which society is ordered to serve the interests of capitalists first and foremost.
- QuantumChaos 12y ago
  I think that when people argue against unions, they are usually implicitly arguing against the moral duty of the company to concede to the unions demands, or to allow the union to form (assuming they could legally prevent the union from forming). They are not arguing against the right of the union to try to achieve better wages or conditions, or arguing it is immoral to do so. It is quite easy to be a principled proponent of free markets, no matter who they benefit in a particular instance. It is quite a stretch to say that anyone who claims to adhere to this principle is really an agent of the capitalists.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    I'm not making a generalization about people who are opposed to unions (much less your clever interpretation about what people who are opposed yo unions are really opposed to, though I don't think that that interpretation is at all consistent with as NY of the anti-union arguments I've ever heard, much less a reasonable description of the general basis of such opposition). I was making a generaluzation about "capitalist idealists" and what it means to be one.