Bloomberg Labor Report Profiles TWU's National BikeShare Presence

In a copyrighted story by reporter Ben Penn, the influential Bloomberg BNA Labor Report profiled TWU Local 100's national agenda for organizing bike shares. We're reprinting the story below for our readership.

Reproduced with permission from Daily Labor Report, 197 DLR A-3 (Oct. 10, 2014). Copyright 2014 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) <http://www.bna.com>

After Representation Win in New York,
TWU Targets National Bike Share Presence

By Ben Penn

Oct. 10 — Propelled by a September voluntary recognition agreement with Citi Bike to represent 249 employees in New York, the Transport Workers Union now seeks to give bicycle share workers across the nation a voice on the job, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 10. TWU, which represents public and private transit workers including at New York City's subway and bus systems, views the rapidly expanding bike share industry as a “perfect fit” considering the union's primary mission

is to organize “essentially any entity that moves people,” Samuelsen said. “Everybody is beginning to accept this as a reality that the bike share program is an extension of the transit system.”

Bike sharing, a service allowing riders to pick up a bicycle at any self-service station in a city and return it to another station near their destination, exists in at least 34 urban areas today, with more locations preparing to launch their programs in the coming months. The agreement in New York, which operates the largest bike sharing system in North America, marks the first time bike sharing workers have union representation, TWU Local 100 said. TWU said it is engaged in conversations with bike share workers in 12 U.S. cities. The union also says it already has majority support in Washington, D.C., and Boston, where the companies—Capital Bikeshare and Hubway, respectively, are both subsidiaries of the Portland, Ore.-based Alta Bicycle Share, Inc., Samuelsen said.

At a discussion with local management in Boston and Washington planned for Oct. 13, TWU hopes to extend the voluntary recognition from Citi Bike, also operated by Alta, to those cities, Samuelsen said. He said management's response thus far has been favorable, but the union is waiting for them to hear back from their board of directors. “If we don't get the voluntary recognition, we'll file cards and win the elections,” he added.

While representatives for Hubway and Capital Bikeshare were not immediately available for comment, Alta spokeswoman Leslie Carlson told Bloomberg BNA in an Oct. 10 e-mail that the company “highly values the health and safety of our staff.” Carlson added, “Our wage and benefits packages are generous for the industry. We will be reviewing any union agreements on a case-by-case basis as we move forward.” A Citi Bike spokeswoman told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 10 that the company “is not commenting on union issues right now.”

Citi Bike First Step

One day before a representation election to be conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, New York's Citi Bike agreed Sept. 18 to voluntarily recognize TWU Local 100. The agreement allowed TWU Local 100 to become the exclusive bargaining representative for a unit that includes 96 seasonal and part-time workers. Scattered across three maintenance facilities—two in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn—Citi Bike workers to be represented by the TWU are employed in the bicycle fleet department, bicycle redistribution department, station technician department and the call center. The two sides are in the midst of scheduling bargaining sessions for an initial labor contract, and should get to the table within the next few weeks, Samuelsen said.

Scheduling, Voice on Job Top Worker Priorities

The complaints the TWU is hearing from workers in Boston, Washington and New York thus far follow a consistent pattern, Samuelsen said. Workers are not chiefly mobilizing around the need for economic improvements, but rather around problems with erratic schedules, job security and lack of input into the relatively upstart companies' direction, he said. Citing examples such as inconsistent schedules that are released on extremely short notice and full-time workers forced into part-time status, Samuelsen said the issues are “very easily resolvable” through collective bargaining.

To illustrate worker frustration about not having a voice in company operations, Samuelsen related a common complaint from workers in New York. He said they have offered suggestions to improve efficiency in how bikes are rebalanced at the end of the day to the highest volume stations, yet that “advice has fallen on deaf ears.” “They believe that they can contribute mightily to the success of the system if folks were listening to what they had to say,” Samuelsen  added.

Yet economic improvements will also be a priority at the table, Samuelsen said. “We intend to bargain contracts with wage increases” and improved benefits, he said. According to Alta's website, full-time employees receive a benefits package that includes medical, dental and vision plans and a 401(k) retirement plan. TWU Local 100 spokesman Jim Gannon told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 10 that depending on job classification, bike share workers in New York earn between $16.50 and $18.50 per hour and $12 to $18.87 in Washington.