AU Solidarity plans to launch a campaign this week to raise awareness for the shuttle bus drivers' attempts to unionize, according to Natalie Harris, a sophomore in the School of Communication and a member of AU Solidarity.
The Undergraduate Senate will vote next Sunday on a resolution in support of the drivers.
"We need to take a strong stand on this," said John Cipriani, class of 2009 senator and a junior in the School of Public Affairs, at the senate meeting yesterday. "Please consider the shuttle bus drivers who voted to unionize and are being trampled on by the university."
In the coming week, AU Solidarity plans to flier campus, table the quad and collect signatures on a petition, Harris said. It also plans on introducing a resolution to the Faculty Senate.
"Mainly, we want to create awareness about the project," she said.
The Office of Risk Management and Safety Services has allegedly intimidated drivers from supporting the union by threatening to take away breaks and cut benefits, according to a source familiar with the situation who requested to remain anonymous. Many drivers fear losing their jobs for supporting the union.
"The university has made no efforts to intimidate any shuttle operators," Tony Newman, the director of Risk Management and Transportation Services, said in an e-mail. "No driver has had any action taken against him or her. Further, all pay raises has been implemented on time for everyone without regard to union support."
A group of shuttle bus drivers sent a letter in May 2006 to Patricia Kelshian, executive director of Risk Management and Safety Services, claiming that Risk Management took away drivers' Internet access, refused to reimburse them for cleaning expenses, required them to provide their own uniforms and did nothing to correct derogatory statements directed toward them.
The letter also expressed the drivers' desire to form a union, represented by the Teamsters Local Union 922, to negotiate with the university.
Newman said the university provides drivers with uniform polo shirts at the university's expense and supplies a cleaning service that washes and delivers each driver's laundry. The university gives every driver a one-hour lunch break like every other AU employee, he said.
The drivers voted 9-8 in support of the union in an election held on Oct. 6 and 7, 2006, by the National Labor Relations Board, according to a report by Administrative Law Judge Bruce D. Rosenstein.
One driver arrived at the polling place a few minutes after it closed, and NLRB officials did not allow him to vote, according to the report.
On Oct. 16, 2006, AU filed objections to the election results, claiming that according to NLRB guidelines, the late driver's vote should have been placed in a contested ballot envelope pending a post-election determination of voter-eligibility, according to Rosenstein's report.
"Because the university feels strongly about fair practices, AU appealed the result of the election because the election was not fair and did not protect drivers' rights," Newman said. "The NLRB ignored its own guideline to allow this one voter to vote if both sides consented."
Rosenstein overruled AU's objections, saying that in the absence of "extraordinary circumstances" delaying the late driver, his ballot was not contested.
"We know that [the appeals are] all just stalling tactics," said Aaron Sawyer, secretary and treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union 922. "They're hoping that the shuttle bus drivers will lose faith and walk away from the union, but they haven't."
According to Newman, the university has asked for an expedited process at every step of the appeal.
"It is certainly the right of our shuttle drivers to unionize," he said.
The NLRB certified the Teamsters Local Union 922 as the drivers' representative on April 27.
On May 22, AU filed a petition for review of Rosenstein's decision with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, in June, AU filed for the dismissal of the case, according to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records Service Center's U.S. Party/Case Index.
Newman said the university will consider going to court once they have exhausted the NLRB's appeals process.
"It's ridiculous that university money is going toward union busting," said Laura Taylor, AU Solidarity member and a junior in the School of International Service. "AU is an institution that's supposed to make our community better"
