Denver SuperShuttle Drivers Organizing for Dignity

Union Taxi driver Abdi Buni, an organizer with CWA Local 7777, is helping organize SuperShuttle drivers at Denver International Airport. He and his co-workers organized with CWA in 2006 and formed Union Taxi.

“We came to America for opportunity and to escape oppression,” says Abdi Buni, a taxi driver and organizer with CWA Local 7777. “That’s why I am helping SuperShuttle drivers at Denver International Airport (DIA) get a union like I did.”

Buni understands what the drivers are going through at SuperShuttle, a shared-ride taxi van service operating at Denver and other airports nationwide. In 2006, he led a successful campaign to win CWA representation for himself and 260 other taxi drivers at Denver International Airport.

The owner, a French-owned multinational, Veolia, uses its control over SuperShuttle’s 94 drivers, mostly African immigrants, to squeeze them of nearly every dollar.

SuperShuttle drivers at the Denver airport typically work a 60-hour week, but they clear little more than the minimum wage after spending nearly $400 a week for SuperShuttle’s vehicle lease, insurance, and company franchise fee. In addition, workers pay all vehicle maintenance costs plus gasoline, and the employers’ share and their own of social security taxes.

When all is said and done, the drivers say that they don’t clear much more than about $20,000 to $25,000 a year, much of which is heavily dependent on tips. “The drivers work under a modern day form of indentured servitude,” said District 7 organizing coordinator Al Kogler who is working with Buni in helping the workers organize. “I have never seen such terrible treatment by an employer.”

SuperShuttle tried to block the drivers from forming a union by claiming they were “independent contractors” but the National Labor Relations Board didn’t buy it, ruling that the claim was ridiculous given the amount of control the company exerts over the workers.

The company put GPS devices in the vans to keep close tabs on the workers, and pick up times are scheduled so tightly that drivers often don’t have the time for bathroom breaks. Management writes drivers up for missing or declining a fare, and even being out of uniform.

The company also puts phony passengers in the vans to spy on drivers and puts pressure on them to work tremendous amount of overtime.

The workers also encounter disrespectful and often racist treatment. While at Yellow Cab, which is owned and operated by the same company, Buni and his co-workers got an ugly “monkey come, monkey goes,” or “Mohammed comes, Mohammed goes,” response when they were told by a manager that they could leave if they didn’t like working at the company.

“You can only take so much,” Buni says. 

Fed up with the mistreatment, Buni and the drivers severed ties with Veolia and formed their own company, Union Taxi, where drivers are truly independent contractors who can earn a decent living. They also give a 15 percent discount to passengers who are union members.