VOD#3, Organizing by Karin

A two week hiatus from work gave me the chance to research a few things I've been curious about, specific to how and how much we messenger types get paid. I took a trip to the SF Labor Commission office, where I spoke with helpful clerks who gave me stuff to read and advice about filing claims. I also picked up a copy of a book called California Workers Rights, a manual of job rights, protections, and remedies. The information below and beyond is extracted from that book and pamphlets titled Overtime Requirements under the Industrial Welfare Order and Your Workers' Compensation Benefits. Please Read On!

• WAGES:
Minimum wage is $4.75 per hour under state & federal law effective Oct. 1, 1996.

If, for example, you are require to work the day after a national recognized holiday (Nov. 29) or any day understood by the industry to be "slow," if the company you work for is particularly over-hired or you are new to the area (unfamiliar, rookie, whatever), if your dispatcher's starving you or it's just plain show and no one is allowed to leave, you must be compensated for time worked at minimum wage. If your daily gross pay is less than $38.00 for eight hours your employers is breaking the law. Minimum wage is the least an employee can be paid!

Company "policy" does not supersede state and federal law. If an administration person at your company has told you that you aren't entitled to an hourly minimum wage because you're a commission worker, they are either unfamiliar with the labor laws or they're lying and counting on your not knowing any better.

• OVERTIME:
No employee shall be employed for more than 8 hours in a work day unless the employee receives one and one half times the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 8 hours.

Everyone in this business has worked a ten hour day. It's the nature our special type of service industry. We are riding around before most of the clients come in and often after most of 'em go home.

I've not yet worked for a company who pays its messengers overtime properly, nor do I know of any doing so at this time. (Please correct me if I'm wrong). If your pay stub shows a break down like this:

hourly $$$
+over-time bonus $$$
amount of pay,

you are not receiving overtime compensation. This is the company's clever way of making it look like it, while showing they meet the hourly minimum. the State of California has established methods of computing overtime pay for commission workers and your employer is required to include stand-by time as hours worked. You should keep track of hours worked either by clocking in or simply writing them down.

• DEDUCTIONS:
Your employer may not deduct the cost of a lost or unreturned uniform from your pay even though you have signed prior authorization to that effect.

Any deposit you are required to pay for uniforms is considered a "cash bond." It must be returned to you with interest when you bring the uniforms back. You are not responsible for employer's losses nor are you required to subsidize their business. You are not required to pay for damage to packages unless you did it on purpose and they can prove it. Your pay cannot be reduced because of a loss.

Your wages are your property.You must be paid within 72 hours of discharge or termination even if company equipment is in your possession.

• WORKERS COMPENSATION:
An employee is entitled to workers compensation benefits for any work relate injury or illness regardless of who was at fault.
An injury could be the result of a single incident say crashing on the tracks. An injury could also be the result of work-related activities over a period of time, like sore shoulders ad numb fingers from carrying a lot of heavy packages or knee pain.
You should never be fired because of a work-related injury. You should never have to assume financial responsibility for a work-related injury. Your employer is required to have Workers Compensation insurance.
If you think about what we do as messengers, how we risk our lives each day and get very little respect for the effort, you could come to the conclusion that what we provide isn't a valuable service.

In reality delivery service in SF means big money. Using messengers is the fastest and cheapest way to send documents in downtown, yet our average weekly pay hasn't increased in 10 years. SF is one of the lowest paying cities for messengers in relation to the cost of living, even though we are integral part of business here. It seems to me we had all better wake up and realize that "business as usual" would not happen without us. Winter is descending upon us and the level of danger involved in cycling downtown is increased exponentially. IN winter we are not so easily replaced.

If we could come together as a group we could force our employers to at least comply with the labor laws and possibly increase our pay. We could also address other related issues like job security, benefits, and maybe even MUNI while we're at it.

The next time you do a tag for a dollar or less, think about who decides how much you get for risking life and limb.

We do the "work," suffer the abuses in many cases, ad usually only receive 50% of a delivery rate that's been devalued or unchanged in years. Very many of us live a check-to-check existence. We deserve more, but we will have to demand it, and to make any kind of demands we will need an organization to back us up. We need a good labor lawyer who would help us for free or cheap or maybe the help of a labor organization. Most importantly though we need each other. I know there are a lot of messengers out there who take what the do seriously or who have been on the roads long enough to know what's up. Workers in what are thought to be the lowliest of professions (janitors, garment workers) are now or are in the process of getting organized around the exact same issues as the ones we have. What's stopping us?

The Labor Commission office is located at 30 Van Ness. If you are not being paid properly you can obtain and file a claim form there. They can assist you in filling out the forms.

-by Troublemaker