by Isabel Castro Messengers,
New York Amsterdam News, November 26, 1994
The opening salvo in the battle to unionize messengers in our town took place last Friday. The results of the National Labor Relations Board-led collective bargaining election, involving Teamsters Local 840 at the Orbit Lightspeed Courier Systems, showed 89 votes for the union, 89 against, with eight challenged, still unopened ballots.
Joel LeFevre, secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters local, told the Amsterdam News that he is "optimistic" that the union will win when the NLRB rules on the challenged ballots. He added that in any case the industrywide organizing campaign will continue.
Also, the Teamsters filed with the NLRB charges of unfair labor practices, including threats by Orbit management of murder and physical harm, deportation of undocumented workers, reincarceration of ex-inmates on work release, firings and "other outrages."
Messengers are among the most exploited and unprotected category of workers in New York City. In recent weeks their efforts to organize has drawn the support of Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke to them on the streets of New York and at a union rally, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who sent a letter to Orbit messengers encouraging them to vote union.
Last June a messenger walked into the offices of the 1,300 clerical and service-member Teamsters Local 840 at 345 W. 44 St. in Manhattan. He related that he delivered a package to a person (who happened to be a member of Local 840), and in the course of conversation talked about his pitiful pay and working conditions.
She responded, "Why don't you go talk to my union?" And that was why he came.
Why should messengers join the Teamsters? Perhaps it goes back to the legendary Jimmy Hoffa, who once said, "If it has got wheels, the Teamsters have jurisdiction."
The messenger was told to come back with some friends of his the following week, if he was serious. He showed up with seven fellow workers. The union decided to test the interest further and gave the messengers leaflets for a meeting set for the next week.
Ninety-two people came. At that point the messenger union organizing campaign was born, and it has gone forward since.
There are about 4,000 messengers in the city, almost evenly divided between bikers and walkers. Some 70 percent are Black, including African and Caribbean immigrants, with the remainder being Latino and White. It is estimated that two-thirds of the workforce is steady, and one- third have worked in the field for over five years.
Notably, the average messenger does not start and end his career with the same company. In the selfish and unethical, rough-and-tumble contemporary world of the messenger, if you have a disagreement with something that is being done to you, you move on to another messenger company.
LeFevre, in an interview with the Amsterdam News, revealed that the average messenger makes $275 to $350 a week gross. "Some athletic messengers earn $575 and even $700 in a busy week, but the take-home is still under $500," LeFevre said.
The Amsterdam learned from LeFevre and talks with messengers that many are subjected to numerous odious employer-deductions for two- way radios, phone calls to secure pickup assignments, beepers, bike repairs (the bikes are owned by the messengers, not provided by the companies) and worker compensation insurance, even though that is illegal.
Teamsters Organizer Bernadette McCulloch pointed out that "charging bikers for radios and beepers is like charging secretaries for their typewriters. All bicycle, moped and most van repairs are the sole responsibility of the employees. Thus, messengers pay to work."
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