Citistrikes? Bike-Rental Company Unionizes
Yes, the CitiBikes are now union bikes — but CitiBike workers shouldn't expect MTA-style pay and benefits anytime soon. The union can't fleece the bike riders like it can fleece Gov. Cuomo's taxpayers.
Rolling out CitiBike last year, Mayor Bloomberg's transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, said it was “New York City's first new public-transit system in more than 75 years.”
Well, unionization brings it a lot closer to Gotham-style mass transit. The only thing it needs to totally fit in is a hefty taxpayer subsidy — and there's already quiet talk of that.
CitiBike, a private firm, has 249 year-round and seasonal workers — who mostly change flats, grease gears, answer phone calls and move bikes from full stations to empty ones.
It took the TWU Local 100 little more than a year to get these folk to sign up for the transit union. This, when the activists trying to organize fast-food and retail workers have made a lot more noise and had a lot less success.
The TWU also won an important legal victory last month. The feds said that CitiBike's 96 seasonal workers — who work only when it's warm out and more people are using the bikes — could join up, too.
So what do these new TWU members want?
Working for the bikes isn't such a bad job. Average pay is about $15 an hour, or about $30,000 for full-time work — which happens to be what “living wage” advocates at the fast-food outfits want.
Mechanics make $16.50; mechanic supervisors make $18.
Plus, CitiBike pays full health care for full-time, year-round workers (plus subsidized coverage for their family members). And it offers a 401(k) retirement-fund match, too.
And these jobs look even better considering that they didn't even exist three years ago.
Still, this isn't MTA pay. The average subway or bus worker makes $70,000, says the Empire Center — and gets cheap family health care plus a guaranteed middle-class pension for life.
But the bike workers aren't agitating for, say, a guaranteed pension. First, they want a $1.50 raise — one “we were promised” after 90 days, says Dolly Winter, a bike dispatcher.
They also want more predictability for part-timers and seasonal workers. “They dropped people to part-time” without warning last November, says Winter, “and a bunch of people got laid off.”
As Nick Bedell, the TWU education director, says, “Somebody who's trying to make a living needs to know how much they'll make each week.”
And, with a nod to glitches like CitiBike's software and bike-balancing problems, Winter said, “We just want the bike-share to work better.”
Yes, the union may ramp up its demands. Winter said that workers may want “more things later on.” But for now, the union is being modest compared to its usual stance toward the MTA.
After all, union leaders and workers well know that CitiBike, unlike the MTA, has no taxpayer guarantee of money — and can and very well could go bankrupt.
Indeed, what workers see as management incompetence is . . . well, management incompetence, but also the behavior of a struggling and inexperienced startup trying its best through a hard first year.
Demand for its product far exceeded expectations in summer and fall, then fell amid one of the coldest winters in modern history.
CitiBike laid people off and froze pay not to be mean, but because it doesn't have any money. If the union's new members push too hard, they won't have any jobs.
Even as it is, an onerous three-year contract, including strict rules for seasonal workers, could help deter a potential savior from buying the company.
It's something to think about if CitiBike does need a city subsidy to stay in business: Will the money go to bikes, or to workers?
Transit advocates should take a lesson here as they call for more money for the city's other mass transit — the subways and buses.
Last week, the MTA announced its five-year, $32 billion plan to buy new trains and buses, upgrade signals and start the next part of the Second Avenue Subway.
But the MTA has no idea where it's going to get money for $15.2 billion worth of that spending — unless Albany gives it more money from somewhere.
But any no-strings-attached money would go right to the unions in future contracts. When the pockets are that deep, the TWU won't be as shy about digging even deeper.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post
This piece originally appeared in New York Post