
So the story isn't anything to actually do with Facebook. Its a dispute about some bus drivers that get mistreated by their company and not by their companies client.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Facebook's shuttle bus drivers have voted to join the Teamsters union – as anger grows over the pay disparity between moneybags engineers and cash-strapped service workers. The unhappy drivers work for Loop Transportation, which has a contract to ferry Mark Zuckerberg's staff to and from San Francisco, the East Bay and the …
In California it is...then again, in California, bus drivers feel entitled to the same wages as a PhD working at Facebook. Things like raising and lowering your foot, moving your arms and nearly mindlessly navigating a loop come at a real premium!
Also, *where the hell* are these people living that they can't get there and back in 6 hours? It must be a real bitch to spend 3 hours getting to work and 3 hours getting home _anyway_. So since they claim to start at 6AM and end at 9PM, they are basically leaving at 3AM and getting home at midnight? I don't think so.
The "Loop" is from San Fransciso to Menio Park, CA. If you had read teh article you would have learned what loop driving is. I saw walk out and let the suits drive themselves to and fro. Let's see how long it takes the passengers to complain to Zuckerberg about the long six-hour not paid time without provisions to relax other than one trailer for 40 drivers mentioned below.
" Loop Transportation employees described starting work at the crack of dawn, driving Facebookers to work before clocking off for a six-hour unpaid break.
Many workers live too far away to get home during this down period, so spend the day snoozing in their car or hanging around in a miserable trailer with up to 40 other drivers."
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To all you clueless, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Ayn Rand types sounding off here, unionization is the only reasonable answer. $17 to $25 an hour is a pittance in the Bay area. Do you
ever care about the details of these workers lives. They get up at 5 am to leave at 5:30. Get home at 9 pm. A meal and a shit, shower, shave brings them to 10 pm. If they skip the tv news and late-nite talking heads, and instead just collapse into bed, ignoring their family, home and friends completely they might just get 7 hours sleep if they drop off instantly.
What's that, you say, "Educate yourselves"? I don't know many night school courses that start at 9 pm and will eventually help under-educated drivers to earn any more than they earn now. My dad took course after course and never earned an extra cent by them. He was probably lucky to hang onto his job, if they helped at all.
"Why don't you go home in the middle of the day?" Sure, it's really worth driving an hour to be home for 4 hours, only to have to turn around and drive back an hour. Just don't fall asleep, and hey, that's only 10 EXTRA hours of driving a week and gas is cheap, NOT.
"Why don't you educate yourselves during that 6 hour gap" Yeah sure, any 40 or 50 year old can concentrate in a stinking trailer jammed with 40 other guys jabbering away and watching tv.
"So go out to your car." You mean the car that is roasting in the sun? To try and lay out some books in the front seat, in the stifling heat, and actually accomplish anything? To improve oneself so one can be told no one hires over 50 year-olds? And over 40, not so much either.
I repeat, the only reasonable solution is a union to stand up for you, get you a decent wage and working conditions, and maybe to help you to help your kids enough to not get ensnared by the no-future treadmill that you are on. To break the cycle of poverty, (sorry for that cliche, but there's a lot of truth in it.)
Try living over here in the UK where "gas" (ie petrol) currently costs around £1.20 (=$1.88) per litre and tell us again how "expensive" it is!
Put it in context. In the UK you've got a reasonably efficient car, possibly doing 40-50mpg. Not many of those in the Bay Area, not helped by the California emissions regs that make them even less efficient. Juggling to achieve the same units (US gallons being smaller than Imperial, so headline mpg looks even worse) and allowing for some of the stupid big trucks, 20-30mpg is more typical. That's $7500 a year, and given that fuel has varied from $3/gal to $4/gal in the past year, it's a lot to handle. It's quite possible for commute costs to be 20% of someone's gross income.
6 hours a day to do what? Why NOT study? If he bloody Teamsters union was any good they'd be wheeling support out to those guys in the form of at least some kind of tutor faster than the speed of light instead of leaping up and down whining. Once educated those guys wouldn't necessarily have to work with Faecebook at all - you never know there might even be another budding Fuckerberg out there who will start something like Faecebook but which is actually useful, trustworthy and relevant.
The teamsters union is not any good.
Government jobs in this state are closed shop, only managers are exempt from being in the union.
I'm a senior scientist in the environmental unit, with a Ph,D and I get to pay $250/month union fees or them to agree a zero percent pay increase in each of the next 3 years
Also, *where the hell* are these people living that they can't get there and back in 6 hours? It must be a real bitch to spend 3 hours getting to work and 3 hours getting home
You have clearly not experienced Silicon Valley traffic.
For starters, in most of the Valley, you're looking at half a million dollars minimum to buy a house, and if you're in the nice bits like Palo Alto or Menlo Park or Mountain View, then you're either looking at a rabbit hutch or the wrong side of a million dollars (or both, in some cases). Rental for a family-sized house or apartment is probably a couple of thousand dollars a month minimum, and there's quite a bit of competition for what's available. I know a few people who live out towards Modesto, which is 80-90 miles away and therefore 90 minutes drive even with no traffic (apart from cops with speed guns encouraging you to take 90 minutes and not 60). Various highways, 85, 101, 880, 237 etc, all put the M25 to shame when it comes to imitating a car park, so that last 20-30 miles can easily take over an hour.
So, if you can't afford to live in the Valley itself, you're stuck living some distance away and yes, of that six hour gap you could be driving for at least four of the hours. There are probably dire consequences for failing to be there on time for the evening pick-up, so you've got to allow for contingencies. The morning/evening trips to home may be relatively OK, but if you've got to get to the bus garage to get your bus, then drive it to your pickup area, all as traffic is increasing for the rush-hour, the necessary start time gets earlier and the final end time get later.
Supposedly it's so pricey in silicon valley, the facebookers' and googlers' $100k salaries are barely enough to survive... certainly those who moved from elsewhere and were forced to pay market rates for housing. 100k salary, 50k taxes, 40k rent... ouch.
So if you're a bus driver making 30-40k, you won't find affordable housing within an hour's drive.
A London Bus Driver (Transit over the pond) earns around £25K a year, £22k national average. With overtime this can go up to about £28K. The UK minimum Wage is £6.50 and the minimum for a bus driver is £9.50 which goes up to about £12. At £/$1.60 then Facebook pays better than the UK, but not a lot.
I wonder how much the local transit drivers get paid.
Supposedly it's so pricey in silicon valley, the facebookers' and googlers' $100k salaries are barely enough to survive
The San Francisco suburbs, including Silicon Valley, is one of the most expensive places in the USA to live in. Believe me, it's impossible to live on $100K a year there, even if you never socialize and always eat at home. These drivers at $20/hour make $41.6K/year, they must have spouses that work.
Like you , I thought that the wages seemed quite good until I read the article. The driving around bit pays well but the sitting around bit doesn't pay anything.
It is similar to the Zero Hours agreements foisted on agency workers at places like Amazon and New Look warehouses here in the UK.
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It said that although Facebook workers earn "extraordinary" wages, the poorly paid drivers and other service workers can barely afford to send their kids to school, let alone buy a decent house anywhere near work.
Skilled employees versus unskilled. Don't want a crap job? Get a decent education.
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>Seeing that their "work" doesn't accomplish any useful to society…
Seeing as you are the final arbiter of such things, how's about a few more examples of professions that you consider worthless to "society"? This should be good.
Oh, and you'll be sure to tell us all what YOU do to advance the human race, won't you?
Cockwomble.
"Hell, let them strike, I'm sure Facebook employees can work remotely easier than most."
Since Facebook doesn't (directly) pay the wages of the drivers anyway, all that will do is destroy the bus company.
I really don't see how joining a union is going to get them home any earlier?
"To me (in the UK) the name mainly conjures up links to organised crime"
Yup, same crowd, however, it's usually the union management and their thugs that pretend to work amongst the rank & file workers. I have a of friends who are Teamsters and they are some of the most honest, hard working folks I know. But they're just truck drivers. They're only mixed up with the union because they don't have a choice (it's either join or else... Accidents do happen to independents who don't have the protection of the union).
...... before clocking off for a six-hour unpaid break.......Many workers live too far away to get home during this down period, so spend the day snoozing in their car or hanging around in a miserable trailer with up to 40 other drivers.
Call me insane, but how about spending those 6 hours getting yourself an education and as a result get a better job and moving on.
Or you could just sit there doing nothing for 6 hours a day and whine how well every one else is doing.
Then again, they could be treated better. According to this article, Google drivers have access to the Google gyms and cafeterias. Though of course, the article is essentially about the same complaint: work in the morning and late afternoon, with nothing to do in the middle.
Then get a new one. Plenty of people would love to earn even $17 an hour. This sounds like a case of sour grapes. Boohoo...those facebook people get paid a lot, but me as a bus driver ONLY gets $17-25 an hour. This just angers me. If you want a fat wage, aspire to be more than a unionized bus driver.
Maybe you should have read the linked article. The man earned $35.000./yr. before taxes and other deductions. His house note was $2,000/mo.(perfectly average) and his health insurance was $1,200/mo. Do the math. That's over $38,000/yr before he pays his federal taxes, state taxes, property taxes, car note, car insurance, house insurance, gas and maintenance for his car, groceries, clothing, house maintenance, cell phone, cable, school field trips for the kids. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, maybe a pair of bus tickets for a trip to the local shelter for a free meal. You schmuck.
The issue is that the cost of living in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area is off the hook expensive as others have stated. I knew a couple of people that worked there for tech companies some years ago (late 90's) that were paying $2200/month for a 1 bedroom flat on the 4th floor with one parking space in the underground car park. I can't imagine what the cost is now for a family that needs 3 bedrooms and space for two cars. Forget about the article lamenting that these drivers couldn't make enough to buy a house in the area. Most people in the US don't earn enough money to afford a house in the area. Even the outlying areas are expensive since many people that work for these same companies in low paying jobs have had to move further out a couple of times. At some point, there won't be anybody in the area to clean offices for less than $40/hour. It's not very bright to locate a company in the area these days. Those that do are impressed with the address and are making poor business decisions.
The traffic is horrible making a job driving a giant vehicle while scared lemmings in their shiny metal boxes are constantly cutting you off trying to make it to their desk on time or back home after spending the day pretending to work. If it was a milk run on wide and open streets, things might be different.
I didn't see how many hours the drivers work each day. Is it eight or closer to six? Any benefits? Does the company pay for physicals needed to maintain a commercial license?
None of the quotes in the article imply the drivers are unhappy about being paid less then the tech workers, so is that really what they're unhappy about.
I suspect the working conditions may be what they're actually complaining about, and while there may be some problems the fact that you live too far away from your job to go home at night is hardly the fault of your employer. If you want to live closer to your work either change home or change job.
If they really are complaining about getting paid less than tech workers at Facebook, then they need someone to tell them to stop being bloody silly. You can't legitimately complain your pay is different to someone doing a totally different job. It's the same stupidity you see in a lot of the arguments about pay disparity between men and women, in many of the cases I've see reported of women complaining they get paid less than men in their company they are not comparing their pay to men doing the same job. (Not to say their isn't any gender discrimination in any workplaces, just that people are not always making realistic assessment of the situation).
We live in world today where we can't believe what most media reports because they are owned by one side or the other of the political extremes - and rarely do people investigate what the truth actually is. If they did, all Polticians would strighten up or be voted out for their crooked ways.
I guess you didn't read the article when you said "None of the quotes in the article are unhappy about being paid less than the tech workers". In fact, the article contains this quote from a letter the Teamsters sent to Zuckerberg:
"The issue was first raised in a letter (PDF) from Teamsters addressed directly to Mark Zuckerberg himself.
It said that although Facebook workers earn "extraordinary" wages, the poorly paid drivers and other service workers can barely afford to send their kids to school, let alone buy a decent house anywhere near work.
"This reminiscent of a time when noblemen were driven around in their coaches by their employees," the union wrote. "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."
For those that didn't get the musical reference in the sub-heading, here it is
Seems to me the best solution is to knock them down to part time. That way they can be home with their families more. Bring in another group to work the afternoon route.
Wouldn't you then need a bus to collect the drivers from the morning route who wanted to go home, and drop off the ones for the afternoon shift? Unless... the same driver gets into the bus to take himself home in, and then drops himself back in the afternoon, and he could then get paid for those six hours working, and bingo!
NOW problem solved! :-)
"Seems to me the best solution is to knock them down to part time.
...or FB and other local companies take advantage of all these people sitting around unpaid for six hours and employ then on a part time basis. I'm sure that at the very least there's a number of possiblities even for unskilled work sich as grasscutters, janitors, litter pickers, canteen staff over busy lunch periods, not to mention other jobs which could be done by those drivers with more skills which could be job shares or part-tme. Just because they're currently bus drivers doesn't mean they are not qualified for other jobs but it's just not econmical to travel so far to work in the FB part of town and there's nothing local.
There might be some time-on-duty issues if the drivers worked during the middle of the day.
The morning drivers might be offered work after their driving duties end until later in the afternoon and evening drivers could either start late (11am-noon) doing something until it was time to drive the evening shift or work after.
A bit of creative thinking might be in order. I'd go bonkers hanging about for 6 hours every day with nothing to do in a smelly trailer with 40 odd other drivers.
If they did that how would the Engineers get themselves from San Francsisco to Menlo Park, CA in rush hour traffic, and back (again in rush hour traffic)?
As for someone wondering where the bus drivers lived that they can't get home in a reasonable timetime. Look at a map of the area. I can assure you they do not live near San Franscisco where a tiny 2 bedroom home cost $150,000.00 more than 15 years ago. I suspect they live inland past Oakland. Considering we do not get free healthcare $15 - $20 per hour (with 6 of them UNPAID while waiting) is pauper wages in this part of America.
.https://www.google.com/maps/dir/San+Francisco,+CA/Menlo+Park,+CA/@37.6383362,-122.2627676,11z/data=!4m19!4m18!1m10!1m1!1s0x80859a6d00690021:0x4a501367f076adff!2m2!1d-122.4194155!2d37.7749295!3m4!1m2!1d-122.4850915!2d37.6708149!3s0x808f7b841e291cb1:0x791b80bcb3f38727!1m5!1m1!1s0x808fa6b1117280ff:0xebbf998e5df289ab!2m2!1d-122.1817252!2d37.4529598!3e0
How are you supposed to study and pay for an education when your job takes up all your time?One of the complaints listed is that they have a mandatory 6-hour unpaid break in the middle of the day, which is not enough time to go home (presumably not enough time to get home, do anything worthwhile and get back) so they sleep in their cars or hang out at a trailer, cooling their heels.
This sounds like a perfect opportunity to get some schooling in.
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Glad you asked. I guess some people just don't think it's worthwhile to be sporting a masters or phd when there are so few jobs matching such qualifications, and so you're still stuck working with illiterates making the same as you. Being better educated can actually work against you. I've been turned down for jobs for being OVER-QUALIFIED. The thinking there is that your potential employer expects you to leave them for the first better-paying job that comes your way. And they are probably right. Unfortunately that could be a very long wait. Over 20 years ago I fell into a conversation with a waiter serving me in a local restaurant. Noting his obvious intelligence and education I asked about his back story. It turns out he had a phd in physics and was just slinging slop for a few years till the Super-conducting Super-collider was completed just down the road. Then Congress cancelled the project and he was now just a lowly waiter, no longer a future Texas physicist. If you are young enough, further education might, repeat, might raise you a foot or so above your present state when you are really aiming a mile up, but the reality is maybe one in a thousand achieve that foot, while the rest don't budge an inch. So, go ahead, knock yourself out, try and spread your books out in that trailer with 40 other sweating drivers with 35 seats, no a/c, no heating, one toilet for all. Just don't expect anything more than a piece of paper for your extreme efforts, and that piece of paper won't be a bigger pay stub. Sorry, reality bites.
I once spent a year in Key West Florida, and when I noted that the high homeless rate was due to the mild climate, it was pointed out to me that most of the homeless couldn't leave even if they wanted to. They simply didn't have the financial means. So my advice to dead-enders stuck like these drivers, if you are young enough, is get out while you can. If your high school sweetheart has just announced she is pregnant and you are wondering how your pizza delivery job is going to pay the bills, it won't. Scan the internet for the nearest city with a decent employment rate and cost of living, save everything you can, quick as you can, then both of you get the hell out of there for greener pastures. It may be your only hope for a better life.
Ah. Yes, I am familiar with the over-qualified turn-down. Having received it, and also having a friend with a B.A. in English. But education need not be limited to collegiate-type learning. One could also learn a skill, EG: welding, machining, drafting, plumbing, etc. These skill will make you employable.
If Zuck fires the bus company and it can be demonstrated that he did so because they voted to join a union, Zuck goes to prison. The labor laws on that sort of thing in the US are pretty harsh. All you have to do is look at how much labor unions contribute to election campaigns to see the reason for that.
I'm sure that Destroy All Monsters and Matt Bryant will be along shortly to tell me how wrong I am, but this is exactly the sort of thing that union representation is for: collective bargaining on behalf of an unskilled or semi-skilled workforce. I hope that it signals a boost in the visibility of unionization throughout Silicon Valley, the USA, and the world. Workers, especially workers with limited means and education, deserve the power that unionization and collective bargaining agreements bring them. It's time for the power of unions to rebound and spread throughout the world.
"This reminiscent of a time when noblemen were driven around in their coaches by their employees," the union wrote. "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."
This is just a bizarre argument. Are they suggesting that someone shouldn't do anything for anyone else unless they're paid the same? Does the same apply to plumbers, shop assistants, school crossing patrols...??
All the more reason for google to hurry up with the driverless cars.
Here's a clue about the free market: no one is a slave to their employer. You are free to change jobs if you feel that the conditions and/or pay aren't what you want. If very few people are willing to work for the offered rate and conditions then the company will increase the pay or change the conditions to attract workers.
I truly don't understand those that complain about their job while staying in it. You can move. Heck if they can't afford housing they could *gasp* even move to a different state.
You are forgetting Social Security tax one must pay into, Property tax built into one's house payment that pays for schools, fire, police, etc., no matter if you have children or not. You have already mentioned state tax, and federal tax. Is there a sales tax? I am sure there is, orly_andico.
"California income tax on a $100K annual salary is 9.3% - and federal tax is 26%
So I don't know where that 50% tax figure quoted above is coming from..."
Add in ~9% sales tax and then gas/school/property tax and you're getting pretty close.
To be fair, I doubt anyone making 100k in the Bay Area can afford a house. I had a BOFH friend that rented in Hayward making average BOFH bucks (six figures, at least). He and his wife could barely afford food. They moved to Phoenix so they could afford to go out to a movie once in awhile.
I've never bought property in the Bay area but I've spent a fair amount of time there (weeks at a time working while living in company paid housing.) The cost of living, housing excluded, is only slightly more than in the midwest in America. I bought all my own groceries and occasionally went out to eat and out for entertainment. My salary is less than six figures and I see no problem with the cost of things there. However, the real estate is unbelievable. And that applies to other areas I've spent time at in California, but more drastically so in the Bay area. Well, SF specifically. The only place I've been to in the U.S. that compares is New York. I looked around with my daughter in NY and a single room in an old building is a couple of grand a month. She currently shares a small apartment with some roomies and it is crowded. She has a life science degree and makes $18 an hour.
I make just over 70K a year. Wife doesn't work. I can afford a decent car (cash) but rent payments for a place in a not-so-nice section of South San Jose are nearing twice what the house payments are for property in much of the country.
I'd have to save up about 30-50K to get a down payment that would get me a small property within 2 hours non-traffic drive of work and then make payments (before property taxes) just under twice my currrent rent. Then there's the nearly ridiculous HOA fees that some "communities" (and not just the upper crust types) that are, by themselves, half of my current rent.
Unless I want a condo, which means paying that down payment and just 50% more than my rent (AND still be liable for property taxes, HOA fees, etc) to "buy" a thin walled apartment whose value submarines the second the building starts turning unsold units into standard rentals and the mandated amount of assisted housing clients.
Something being overlooked is the artificial increase in housing that is being perpetuated by California regulations. I have a friend trying to build a garage (approx. 9x10m) that after 4 months is still in the "trying to get all the permits" stage. He is a carpenter so the building is easy, especially with his contacts in the industry. He estimates at least 30% of his original budget will be spent just getting the actual construction specific permits, soil tests, engineered drawings, etc. Then he has to get it past planning committees, historical committees, heritage committees, etc. with their fees.
This is going in a subdivision that has virtually identical houses and garages already in place, all he is doing is catching up. He ended up giving up on having a sink and toilet in the garage because of the extra environmental assessments that would have to be done.
I'm not saying it needs to be a free-for-all building climate, but I think a little pruning of the existing regulatory environment is in order out there.
That would allow housing to be built out quicker and cheaper and put some downward pressure on the ridiculous housing market.
Speaking as a former forklift driver who worked both daytimes and evenings in the snow and rain, to be frequently told at the end of my shift to jump in a 7.5 tonne lorry and do a York to Tamworth run, I have a lot of sympathy with these guys. I'm reading a lot of comments on here such as "so educate yourself", "move house", or "get a better job". Having done all of the above, I'm probably more qualified than many to make such comments. But out of respect for former colleagues and because I try not to be an arrogant smug git I think I'll refrain.
Sure, you might get the odd driver who, in true Will Smith "Persuit of Happyness" style, lands a job with Facebook. But this only fixes the issue for him. There's a lot of very cash poor and time poor workers in the US (UK too), and a few very rich executives who have no idea how the other half live.
To my mind, that's not a happy situation, but not one that is going to be rectified by Unionisation or Socialism (I don't want an all-powerful State enforcing "equality of poverty").
Maybe the answer is just to treat people better. Take a small hit on the bottom line and also treat your staff with dignity and respect.