Baumann Bus Workers Unite
Pamela Mason and her co-workers with Baumann Bus exhibited great courage and determination in becoming Teamsters.
Mason and a half dozen of her all female co-workers began talking in October 2008 about joining Local 1205 in Farmingdale, N.Y. They were fed up with not getting respect, not having affordable and decent health care and seeing their paychecks shorted.
It was through talking about their concerns that the women realized their co-workers at the eight other Long Island locations for the Baumann Bus transportation company, which includes Baumann & Sons Bus, Acme Bus, Alert Coach and Brookset Bus, faced the same concerns on the job and wanted to make a positive change.
Recently, the 1,700 workers voted 906-644 in favor of Teamster representation in an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. This is a truly historic election, as only 26 certification election victories have taken place for bargaining units of 1,700 or more employees through the National Labor Relations Board in the past 20 years. This is one of those victories.
Working Together
Throughout their campaign, the drivers, driver assistants and mechanics held committee meetings, which grew in size as more workers joined the cause. They knocked on doors and held rallies. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa was joined by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other prominent political, community and faith leaders to support the workers’ efforts. And a volunteer commission made up of five key community leaders throughout Long Island stood up for the workers’ right to organize free of interference and intimidation from their employer.
“The laws in this country need to change. We need the Employee Free Choice Act,” Mason said. “Just the fact that they were able to bring in union busters from another state that don’t know anything about us at all, and that don’t know what our lives are like, shows that it’s all about keeping the money in the boss’s pockets. It didn’t work.”
Many of the workers, single mothers in particular, united to improve wages and health care for their children and are looking forward to negotiating a strong Teamster contract.
“We need to be able to afford basic life necessities, like a roof over our heads and food in our mouths,” Mason said. “I was on my husband’s health insurance, but recently became divorced, so now I don’t have the insurance because I can’t afford it.”
Mason was heavily involved in the organizing effort from the beginning and believes that women have a particular tenacity where it concerns organizing.
“My motto is, ‘Keep your head to the sky and your eyes on the prize.’ We have a lot more power than we think we have. We’re Teamster women and we are not going to be intimidated.”
