Silicon Valley labor's 2015 playbook: tech security guards, tech bus drivers, custodians

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Vicki Thompson

Ben Field, executive officer of the South Bay Labor Council.

Greg Baumann

Editor in Chief- Silicon Valley Business Journal

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The technology industry's success since the Great Recession has made Silicon Valley a focal point for organized labor. Just yesterday, Teamsters Local 853 announced that bus drivers at Apple Inc., eBay Inc., Yahoo Inc. and other tech companies want to join the union.

Ben Field, executive officer at the South Bay Labor Council, is at the forefront of that push, so I wanted to hear about his Silicon Valley plan for 2015.

Unions are continuing a push to organize contract workers including shuttle bus drivers and security guards who provide services for technology companies. Those workers represent a sector of Silicon Valley employees pinched a market that's 87 percent more expensive to live in than the U.S. average.

For organized labor, the four jobs created for every technology job offer a chance to reassert unions in the private sector.

In 2014, Facebook Inc.'s contract bus drivers employed by Loop Transportation voted to be represented by the Teamsters Union. Google Inc. put its security guards on payroll last year after organized labor protested the company's use of Security Industry Specialists, a contract guard service.

Field shared with us the South Bay Labor Council's strategy for organizing at tech companies, as well as organized labor's approach with the new administration of San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and more.

Our discussion has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you articulate why a business owner should care about the income gap?
Sure. When one third of the families in this community aren't making enough to subsist, then they are unable to support a healthy local economy. When those families earn a decent living, they spend the money here locally. That benefits the local economy. It improves community life. It improves this amount of resources available to the government for spending on all sorts of important services that we all benefit from — business owners and everyone else.

Greg Baumann is editor in chief at the Silicon Valley Business Journal.