Private bus drivers who take Facebook employees to and from the Menlo Park campus have approved unionizing. Drivers voted 43-28 to join Teamsters Local 853.
Demaurae Houston says he was one of the drivers to vote yes.
"[The] average person on that bus is probably making about $122,000 minimum. And they’re not paying us half of that. So it’s not fair. It’s really not fair," Houston said.
Other drivers are more concerned with working split shifts. Drivers shuttle employees to Silicon Valley from San Francisco, Berkeley and other locales, sit around for five or six hours during the day, then drive workers back home in the evening. The drivers are not paid for that downtime.
The Facebook drivers are the first of the region’s pervasive shuttle buses carrying technology workers to unionize.