Contract Bike Staff Say Facebook Isn't Protecting Their Rights

(Bloomberg) -- Contract staff who maintain and service ride-share bikes for Facebook Inc. employees are trying to unionize, and they say the social media giant isn’t protecting their organizing rights.

Facebook provides nearly 1,000 bikes for employees to get around its Menlo Park, California, campus. The bikes are managed by about 50 employees of Bikes Make Life Better, a firm that provides consulting and support for bike-share programs at companies like Walmart Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

In April, BMLB staff working at Facebook started organizing with the Transport Workers Union, seeking to improve their pay and their safety-- some were concerned about risks involved when they had to leave the campus to track down bikes that had been stolen or left in town. The union claims BMLB management has responded with intimidation tactics, including holding mandatory anti-union meetings in which they tell workers that they can’t talk about organizing at work, and if they become unionized, they could lose their contract with Facebook and therefore their jobs.

TWU said it repeatedly emailed Facebook to ask that the company intervene to get its vendor to respect workers’ rights and recognize the union, but the company didn’t respond.

“Facebook could make all of that go away with one phone call,” said TWU’s international president John Samuelsen. He said that the social media giant is responsible for these workers. “They have a convenient underclass of workers that are effectively Facebook workers regardless of who signs their paycheck.”

“Facebook as a whole respects the right of our vendor employees to organize,” said Anthony Harrison, Facebook spokesperson. “We believe that it is also important that the vendors we work with do not oppose or inhibit the right of their employees to unionize.” Facebook said it communicated that to the companies it contracts with, but did not specify when.

Amy Harcourt, a director at BMLB, said in an email that the company denies the union’s allegations. “We respect our employees’ rights under the law to organize, if they so choose,” she said.

In a flier viewed by Bloomberg, BMLB told employees that it respects their rights but “we have serious concerns about how a union such as the TWU could affect the work environment we have all worked hard to build.” The flier warns staff that if they unionize they would have to pay union dues even before securing a collective bargaining agreement, a claim TWU says is false.

One BMLB employee said he was told by BMLB managers that talking about the union at work was making co-workers feel uncomfortable, that he had to stop doing it, and that the organizing effort was endangering the company’s contract with Facebook. The worker asked not to be named because of concerns about retaliation. According to the union, BMLB has also changed where workers are assigned to work in order to make it harder for them to discuss unionization.

The union filed in late May for a National Labor Relations Board election to represent the roughly 50 BMLB staff at Facebook. In addition to maintaining the shared bikes, BMLB workers make repairs on Facebook workers’ personal bikes. Workers say they have to frequently track down shared bikes after Facebook employees drive them off campus and leave them in town.

There are tens of thousands of subcontracted workers around the world who provide Facebook services from security to content moderation, but are legally employed by outside firms. The treatment of contractors has become a hot-button issue in Silicon Valley, with some engineers joining contract workers in calling for large tech companies to take greater responsibility.

Facebook has required for years that its vendors provide staff with paid time off, and announced last month that it would require that subcontracted staff in the Bay Area, New York City and Washington be paid at least $20 an hour. After sparring with Facebook in the past, unions in recent years have praised Facebook’s handling of organizing drives among its subcontracted service staff. Facebook has said that in 2017, when Facebook cafeteria workers employed by Flagship Facility Services sought to unionize, it made clear to Flagship that it was neutral on the effort, and that if the union prevailed, Facebook would not punish Flagship.

--With assistance from Kurt Wagner and Ellen Huet.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Eidelson in Washington at jeidelson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Emily Biuso

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