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SCHOOL BUS UNION ACTIVISM
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It was 1973, the local union elections were approaching. The previous ones had been busted by baseball bat wielding goons. Some drivers, union activists and militants formed a caucus that held secret meetings around the city to take back their local from Collier and negotiate a decent contract. After a roller coaster of red-baiting and intimidation, the drivers got what they wanted: Collier was out of the picture and a new chapter was underway.
The biggest school bus driver negotiations in history were about to take place, and in 1973 and again in 1976 the drivers went on strike. It was big news—broadcast on television, headlined in the San Francisco Chronicle, and covered on the radio. They won a decent contract.
The San Francisco drivers then made a federal appeal to get school bus drivers protected under federal labor law. The appeal was heard and the policy changed. Tens of thousands of school bus drivers were now able to join unions and greatly improve their living conditions.
SCHOOL BUSING IN THE '70s
San Francisco—a small, big city—had a large school district that contracted to the lowest bidding private school bus company.
The drivers were members of the United Transportation Union, and were just part of their relatively small local. The structure was very rank and file— the power distributed among the drivers, as they had no union bureaucrats on a payroll to negotiate their contracts. Though they were small, they had leverage. They were the only school bus drivers in San Francisco, and without them, the company would have no contract with the school district... a big loss.
In 1971 the local was unofficially run by Paul Collier, the Secretary/Treasurer. The drivers barely survived on $2.85 an hour. No benefits. No sick days. Little dignity. Collier drove a Mercedes and wore dark suits, eating well on union insurance commissions and dues. With the changing tide of society, many progressive youth became drivers just to organize.
FALL OF ORGANIZED LABOR
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Since the 1970s, at bargaining tables around the country, school bus drivers have been saying, “We want what San Francisco has.” Why? Because today they have one of the best labor contracts in the school bus industry.
For the majority of the country, however, things are much different.
It’s 2016 and economic inequality has reached historic levels. Even most school bus drivers in San Francisco today don’t know the history of their own local, nor do many of them even understand how a union works.
San Francisco, a once labor friendly city, now has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the nation. Where did the unions go? What is the stigma against unions, amongst even union members themselves? How does San Francisco—the most expensive city in the United States of America—as well as the rest of the country, resuscitate its precious, dying middle-class?
This is what the film is about.
POST-WAR AMERICA
The year is 1970 and there are two general Americas: A good ol' boy nation whose domestic policy is based on social inequalities, and whose foreign policy is based on American exceptionalism, and a young nation dissatisfied with the way the country views and treats its people and neighbors.
Richard Nixon is president and San Francisco, California is the Promised Land for baby boomers across the nation. It’s a young, progressive, labor friendly city with a sense of unity, and the young people feel empowered by this unity.
In San Francisco and across the country, social and cultural movements are taking place: Civil rights, women’s liberation, anti-war. Feelings of injustice are sparking a fire in the belly of many young progressives. In San Francisco, this fire gave fuel to the labor movement.
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