A group of about 30 bicycle messengers agreed to climb back on their wheels first thing Wednesday morning following a week-long strike against San Francisco dispatch company DMS Corp.
It was unclear whether the truce reached Tuesday between DMS and the cyclists would mean strikers’ specific demands would be addressed. The DMS strike was the latest public display of frustrations among The City’s bicycle messengers over working conditions and pay.
The DMS messengers, joined at times by drivers and a few dispatchers, have been demanding higher pay based on per-delivery commissions, compensation for equipment such as pagers and radios, and paid sick days, holidays and vacations, among other benefits.
The company and the strikers both said Tuesday’s agreement was a victory.
“We reached an understanding,” said Terence Hird, center manager for DMS in San Francisco. “They’re returning (Wednesday) at 7:30 a.m. We’ve agreed to collectively address certain issues of concern to them.”
Hird, who has been on the job just six weeks, said no specific demands had been negotiated Tuesday. A handful of strikers broke through the stalemate when they met with DMS officials inside the company’s offices on Third Street.
“We made conditions that the replacement workers be gone (Wednesday) and that we get all of our equipment back,” said DMS bike messenger Aaron Hackett, a strike organizer.
“I think that it was a really successful action,” Hackett said. “We consider it a victory. Hopefully it will be a catalyst. We’ve now demonstrated that we’re able and willing and capable of organizing this kind of action, and they (company officials) know that.”
Hird, however, said he had made no promises regarding pay or benefits. But he did agree to listen to workers’ concerns.
“Any well-managed company should be working with its employee groups to find out which issues are of concern,” he said. “There’s no reason that it should have come to this, and I think it’s back to where it should be now.”
He said the company’s normal volume of 400 to 500 deliveries a day had fallen by about 20 percent Tuesday because of the shortage of couriers. The strike began without warning to DMS a week ago; the lack of advance notice was another difference between this action and previous San Francisco bike-messenger strikes.
Tempers flared on the picket line Monday morning, when a confrontation between a striking bicycle messenger and a non-striking worker escalated into a scuffle involving about a dozen people from both sides, witnesses said. As allegations were shouted back and forth, at least one person was injured from punches thrown in the DMS parking lot.
Howard Williams, president of the San Francisco Bike Messenger Association, suffered a fractured jaw, he said Tuesday. He underwent surgery Monday and is recovering at home, he said.
Natasha Dedrick, a DMS bike messenger who helped organize the strike, said many of her co-workers wanted to unionize the way messengers had voted to do at two other San Francisco companies, UltraEx and Professional Messenger. But Dedrick is more immediately concerned with seeing better paychecks and benefits.
Seeking representation from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a secondary priority, she said.
Peter Olney, ILWU’s director of organizing, said the strike – the longest sustained by local bike messengers in recent years – had sent a strong message regardless of whether inroads were made that immediately affected benefits and pay.
“It’s a powerful message to the whole messenger community that when they stand together, they have a lot of power,” said Olney, who had no formal role in the strike or in Tuesday’s discussions. “The DMS workers are going to have to make their own decision about what they want to do next.”
