BIKE MESSENGERS ANSWER UNION'S CALL
Magazine: Progressive,
December, 1994, Section: ON THE LINE New York City
In the elevator heading up to Teamsters Local 840 for an organizingmeeting of New York City bike messengers, there are three sweaty messengers,one bike (propped upright on its back wheel), and me. These are three ofthe brave people who career around the streets of Manhattan on two wheels,hustling packages back and forth. They have had a long day, and it shows.
"Hey man, how you doing?" one sinewy courier asks the guywith the bike.
"Oh, bad day. Oil on Third Avenue." He lifts up his pant legto show some nasty bruises and scrapes on his shin.
"Oh, yeah, that's a killer," says biker number one, givingme a nod. He has just finished explaining to me that every bike messengersuffers at least one accident a year. A week ago, a biker was killed aftercolliding with a double-parked truck, then a van. It was the third bike-messengerdeath so far this year.
Some New Yorkers have it in for bike messengers because of the way theyspeed around city streets that are already an anarchic battleground ofpedestrians, cabs, private cars, buses, bikers, and Rollerbladers. OneRepublican member of the city council even tried to codify the anti-bikemessenger sentiment with a measure proposing that police seize the bicyclesof messengers suspected of hazardous behaviour. The new union is fightingthis proposal.
Bike messengers are in a hurry for a reason. They're almost always paidon a piece-rate basis. So long as they earn as little as $2.50 per package,they have to hustle just to get the rent paid.
These are some of the issues that 100 or so bike messengers have cometo Local 840 to discuss this evening. The messengers, almost all youngAfrican-American men, are sitting on folding chairs in a thin, blue hazeof cigarette smoke. They have a lot of questions about the union organizingdrive, but they seem happy to be here.
Local 840 has been working to organize the bike messengers since thespring. (Teamsters have also launched a bike-messenger organizing drivein Washington, D.C.) So far, the union has made inroads at four of thecity's two-dozen messenger companies. The bikers have called job actionsat one employer, and the results of a union election are pending at another.The pro-union messengers are slowly building up contacts, sometimes bysliding leaflets to fellow messengers at stoplights.
Some of the employers are not pleased. "We think unions are badfor the employees," says Robert Wyatt, a co-owner of the Orbit/Lightspeedcompany, whose messengers are attempting to organize."We think thatwhat the union is going to do is protect the lazy worker at the expenseof the good worker."
But it's easy to see why bike messengers are interested in a union.Not only is their pay quite low (averaging $300 to $400 a week), but theygenerally receive no health benefits, sick pay, or vacation days. Accordingto the union, some of the messenger companies don't even pay workers' compensationfor these frequently injured employees.
Bike messenger Alexander Williams says job security is also a big issue."If a messenger decides he doesn't want to go to work one day becauseit’s sleeting or something, he can just be fired," he says. Williamssays he himself was fired for taking three days off when his wife gavebirth, after working for the company for five years. They even tried tokeep me from filing for unemployment," he says.
All this grief on top of the regular daily grind (Williams works anaverage 8:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. workday) makes being a bike messenger anextremely tough job. But, as one messenger at the meeting points out, it'sone of the few employment options out there for young black men.
The concept of unions is obviously a new one to many of the bike messengersin this room. One courier raises his hand to say that he is here becausesomeone handed him a leaflet about the organizing drive. He went back tothe office and made fifty copies of the flier and handed it out to hisco-workers. "Guys kept asking me to meet them in the bathroom to talkabout it," he says. They were afraid to come to this meeting. Butwe're going to have a meeting in the bathroom tomorrow and move ahead onthis thing."
PHOTO: Meager piece-rate wages keep bike messengers hustling--riskinglife and limb as they race around Manhattan.
By LAURA MCCLURE
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