Teamsters Union Shines Spotlight On National Express's "Culture Of Contradictions"
One of America’s leading unions, the 1.4 million-strong International Brotherhood of Teamsters, today published a dossier accusing National Express (NEX) of operating “a culture of contradictions”. In the UK National Express accepts union representation for its workers, but in the US it has a strong anti-union stance.
The dossier, entitled “National Express Group: A Culture of Contradictions” raises serious concerns about the company’s US subsidiary, Durham School Services, having sought to trample on workers’ rights and resist their legitimate attempts to seek union representation. This would be in breach of the company’s own publicly stated position on workers’ rights and in breach of both the principles and terms of US and international labour laws and conventions.
The dossier is part of an ongoing campaign to drive up standards in the school bus industry. The Teamsters are seeking engagement with National Express Group, asking the company to introduce a freedom of association policy that would protect the human rights of their employees in North America when they seek to form a union. The union says that failure to do so exposes the company to reputational risk and possible harm to long-term shareholder value.
The Teamsters Union represents some of the lowest-paid and least secure workers in the US, including drivers, monitors and other workers in school bus yards. A wealth of evidence compiled in the union’s report raises concerns of widespread anti-union practices by Durham School Services. These include allegations of coercing and intimidating of employees, captive audience meetings at which workers are discouraged from union organising, using delaying tactics in order to create time in which to spread anti-union messages and arming management with anti-union handbooks and materials.
Teamster’s General President, James P Hoffa, contrasts the practices of the US subsidiaries of two British companies, National Express and FirstGroup, in their approach to employment rights in their school bus operations. Hoffa says that the biggest school operator of the iconic yellow school buses, First Group’s First Student, operates “a policy respectful of its employees’ human rights, especially those concerning freedom of association”. But NEX’s Durham School Services “displays a poor record filled with complaints regarding unfair labour practices and legal complaints from its employees who dare to stand together to form a union”.
The publication follows concerns, voiced in a letter signed by 36 US Members of Congress, to the company’s CEO, Dean Finch, complaining of “dangerous double standards” and calling upon him to “bring Durham School Services into compliance with US labour law and international human rights standards”. The publication also follows recent representations to National Express from a coalition of union investment funds, the CTW Investment Group, for the company to address its corporate governance procedures, in the light of its current battle with dissident investors.
Durham School Services has been the subject of more than 200 complaints to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees the application of labour laws and workers’ rights in the US. Most recently, the NLRB last week issued a complaint about a member of Durham management and two supervisors in a California yard, arising from charges that they interfered with the Board’s proceedings by wrongly informing employees that they did not have to honour subpoenas from the Board, and implying the termination of a worker’s contract should that worker comply with the subpoena.
Rick Middleton, Teamsters International Vice President said: “The dossier is a damning indictment of how National Express seems to operate different principles at home and abroad.
“Our dossier indicates that National Express contradicts its own stated principles on how it treats its workers. British people, British investors and British politicians believe in fair play; they need to know about this and I hope that they will influence National Express to pull Durham School Services into line with its own policies and to play fair by its US employees.
“The school bus sector in the US already demonstrates, via FirstGroup – a UK-owned company – how fair standards in dealing with a workforce, both at home and abroad, can help to nurture commercial success. The matters that this dossier raises about National Express’s practices in the US, in my view, undermine the company’s reputation. I urge National Express to put its stated principles and policies into practice, not just in the UK but in the US too.”
Gina Beck, a driver at Durham School Services’ Laguna Beach yard in California, has come to the UK to question National Express at its AGM on Tuesday. Ms Beck says that she was attracted to the job by the pay, benefits and healthcare insurance promised by Durham’s job vacancy advert, but soon found the reality falling short and her working hours cut. Consequently, because she could not afford the rent on her apartment, she had to move into trailer accommodation and now lives in a partitioned section of a room at the back of an office, living off food stamps and unable to pay for healthcare.
“I know I’ll never get rich driving buses, but while Durham cuts wage costs and tightens my working hours, I won’t even be able to afford to live or, God forbid, to become ill. But I know and love the kids that I drive to school and have developed a special bond with them. I can’t quit now,” she said.
“Union members in the US get about thirty per cent more pay than non-union members and, on my wages, that is the difference between food or no food, medicine or no medicine, a home or just a place to live.”
Notes to editors
“National Express Group: A Culture of Contradictions” is available at http://www.teamster.org/nexdossier
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information.