The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-01-27
AFL Fights Cob CompdnY's
Efforts To Bredk Up Union
By PAT FRAYNE
West Coast Correspondent for AFL
News Service

West Coast Correspondent Tor AfI
News Service
San Francisco. = Some 2,00e
members of Chauffeurs Union 265
San Francisco, are conducting a
fight that may have national roper
cussions.
The union of taxicab drivers are
picketing the Yellow Cab Com
pany, and have been since January
/, on brand new issue which con-
Germs all unionism.
The Yellow Cab Company is de-
Tending the "right" of the Veterans
Taxicab Company drivers to be ac-
corded recognition as individual
operators"
Just three years ago the Yellow
Cab Company was openly accused
of using it's influence to prevent
the Veterans Taxicab Company
getting franchises to operate on
the streets of San Francisco. Now
the YCC is a defender of the VIC
The new move of the Yellow has
been spotted by the taxi drivers
union, however, and even by the
drivers of the Veterans Taxicab
Company who are also in on the
strike.
"This means, in plain language"
explains A. j. Costa, business rep
resentative of the chauffeurs'
union, "that these so-called stock
holders would be able to operate
100 percent nonunion. That's right,
nonunion.
at would mean that the wages
and hours and working conditions,
built by Local 265 to protect its
members, would be wiped out in
that company-and the way open
ed for them to be wiped out in time
to come for all companies"
The chauffeurs union has already
started $40 week strike benefits
to their members in downtown
headquarters set up at 100 Golden
Gate avenue.
They proposed to stand their
ground till the bitter end because
they feel the issue will affect all
union labor. Local newspapers re-
port that lack of taxi service has
cut down night club attendance, by
20 percent. 1t is a mystery to the
taxi drivers that night club and
hotel pressure hasn't been put on
the Yellow Cab Company. The
leaders, however, suspect that the
cab companies are trying out this
new approach to wreck one union
and carry it on to others.
1--WE believe that if the cab COM
pany owners win this STRIKE" said
one union official, "they will estab-
lish the stockholder gadget for
other contracts.
"There wouldn't be anything to
stop them from making their next
step into the Bakery Wagon Driv-
ers or the Teamsters and selling
every driver a share of stock and
thus make the driver an executive
or an individual contractor. Then
the driver of a truck, as well as
taxicab, could work as many hours
as he wished, or as they wanted,
and work under prehistoric work.
ing conditions.
"This is not our fight alone. We
think we are contributing to the
whole labor movement by opposing
he move to establish a quasi
status of the worker
n order to avoid and circumvent
lnion conditions and wages"
The taxi drivers union is seek
ng an increase in wages which
brought about the present situa-
ion. Local 265 carries the whole
.ost of hold-up insurance. The
lnion asks a fty-fifty split on the
costs of this insurance. The union
seeks a welfare fund to provide
minimum of protection for their
'amilies. The union wants 1-year
contract; the company wants 15-
months contract.
1t was suggested by one union
that if the cab companies
wanted stockholders to have free
lom of enterprise" that it should '
,e compulsory for all stockholders.
The union member would like to
zee the president of the Yellow {
Jab Company behind the wheel (
arting few belligerent and con- {