Sitting behind the wheel of one of San Francisco's primary targets of protests, annoyance, and all-out aggression, you'd think these two Facebook shuttle drivers interviewed by USA Today might plead "Please stop attacking us!" But, like a lot of contract workers who serve the tech industry, they're just asking for better pay and more reasonable hours.
In the interview, which you can watch below, driver Jimmy Maerina says he makes $18 an hour and is paid for nine hours total, but his schedule — 5:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. — leaves a six-hour gap in which he's not allowed to take on additional work, per a policy of the company he drives for, Loop.
Maerina, who has four kids, says the only raise he's received since driving was $1, with 25 cents from Loop and 75 cents from Facebook (who he drives for). "They [Facebook] make six-figure incomes, but we're only making $18 an hour," Maerina says. He adds: "We are just barely making it."
Though Maerina lives close enough to go home and nap in between his shifts, he says other drivers sleep in their cars to kill time as they're discouraged from sleeping in the shuttles. "We are just held hostage," Maerina says.
Another driver, Cliff Doi, doesn't blame Facebook, but says the company he drives for needs to fix the scheduling issue. "This split shift is really killing us," Doi says. "I don't know what to do with myself."
