TRIMET LIFT DRIVERS 'WE WANT A UNION'

It’s not every day workers get to swarm their manager’s office to demand union recognition. But that’s what a group of TriMet Lift workers did Oct. 3, accompanied by a state senator, the Oregon AFL-CIO president, and the president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757.
The employer is First Transit — a division of the giant UK-based multinational First Group. Under contracts with TriMet, First Transit runs TriMet Lift, a transit service for seniors and the disabled, from three Portland-area locations. At two of the locations, workers are represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, but at the SE 92nd and Powell yard, they’re nonunion. Up to now, anyway.
Workers weren’t surprised when First Transit operations manager Linda Ciavara, caught off guard, wouldn’t say whether the company will voluntarily recognize their choice to unionize. So the next morning, union supporters filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board. The federal agency strives to schedule an election within 42 days to determine if workers really want a union. [The fact that 112 of the 166 workers might have signed union authorization cards isn’t enough to demonstrate their choice to join a union under U.S. labor law; the employer first gets a chance to hire union avoidance consultants and go at workers at mandatory meetings.

At TriMet Lift, contracted bus drivers say they want a union | nwLaborPress