Arbitration win at First Transit
The members who drive for First Transit on the Stanford Campus recently won a big arbitration. While they were set to receive the 10% split differential that tech bus drivers have, there was not clarity of when that split kicked in. The union maintained that the additional monies would start after one hour while the company said it was after two hours.
“This issue came up when TransDev had the Stanford contract and continued when First Student took over,” explained Business Rep Stacy Murphy. “To everyone’s surprise, the arbitrator ruled for the union.” Retro checks are yet to be determined.
A deal at Macy’s
The 30 or so members who do warehousing at nine Macy’s locations across the Bay Area now have a new three-year agreement, reports Business Rep Dan Harrington. The contract includes wage and pension increases all three years.
Good contracts at MV
Business Rep Pablo Barrera reports that the 40 members at MV Transportation, who work in Mission Bay and in Half Moon Bay ratified a two-year agreement with substantial wage increases, finally breaking the $25/hour threshold.
Barrera also negotiated a two-year deal at MV Transportation in the Presidio for about 20 members who are very pleased to have full Maintenance of Benefits with their health care in the TBT plan.
Contracts across the South Bay
Here are some of the newly-ratified contracts across the South Bay.
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
SP Plus Services (San Jose Airport)
Mondelez/Nabisco
Spicer/Kelly Paper
Good work to the members on the bargaining teams and to Business Rep Jerry Cordova who led the negotiations at the first two, and Vice-President Lou Valletta, who led them at the second two.
New construction members
The workers at two small but growing companies have voted to join Local 853.
Business Rep Eddie Venancio reports that the ready-mix and low-bed drivers who work at QLM Construction in San Jose are now Teamsters.
Also, Organizer Mike Fritz got a unanimous vote from the drivers at Argent Materials, an Oakland-based concrete and asphalt recycling yard.
“The mergers of Locals 287 and 912 into Local 853 create a wonderful opportunity for organizing new members in the construction field, and we’ll explore all opportunities to expand our footprint into covered occupations,” said Recording Secretary/Business Rep Stu Helfer who also heads the Northern Cal Teamsters Construction Division.
Coming parity
The members who work at the San Francisco Unified School District recently ratified their new contract. “It’s a good agreement given all that’s going on with school districts.” says Business Rep Dan Harrington. “And we have a commitment to meet early next year to talk about reaching parity with the City/County of SF.”
