A group of 40 workers at Ford-owned Spin just successfully ratified their first union contract. This comes after this group of shift leads, maintenance specialists, operations specialists, community ambassadors, and scooter deployers and collectors joined Teamsters Local 665 toward the end of last year.
“This new contract gives us job security and immediate money up front, with guaranteed increases each year going forward. We also got holiday pay and vacation, which we didn’t have before we organized,” Spin worker Shamar Bell said in a statement. “All this means a lot during the pandemic. We know our union will have our back if our boss or the city government tries to make changes. I can say for sure, we’re proud to be Teamsters.”
As part of the three-year agreement, Spin workers will get annual pay raises of more than 3% each year, six paid holidays (compared to zero holidays), vacation days based on years of employment (compared to no vacation days), five sick days a year, a $1,200 per employee ratification bonus, benefits accrual for part-time workers and other benefits.
“Since this is the first ever group of union e-scooter workers at Spin, we worked to build this contract from scratch,” Local 665 Secretary-Treasurer Tony Delorio said in a statement. “We are proud of this agreement and excited to continue our representation of workers with Spin.”
TechCrunch has reached out to Spin and will update this story if we hear back.
In January, however, Spin CEO Euwyn Poon told TechCrunch, “We think it’s a good thing to be having the rights of our workers represented…We do want to figure out a way to have everybody win here. Fair wages and a good environment promotes retention for our business.”
This group of Spin workers were able to organize a union because they are classified as W-2 employees, rather than independent contractors. For folks in similar roles at other scooters companies, however, forming a union is not an option.
“We have aggressively advocated for our members not only at the bargaining table, but also with the city to ensure that e-scooter jobs are not temp gig work, that they are good union jobs,” Delorio said. “We welcome the expansion of the e-scooter program to companies that follow the rules. So far
Spin is the only company to abide by labor standards and San Francisco’s requirements for permitting under its labor harmony provisions.”
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