by James Parks, Jul 23, 2007

In their first-ever union election, 269 drivers, employed by Veolia Transportation in Denver, voted last week and are now members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1001. With this vote, more than 500 workers have joined Local 1001 this year.

The Denver victory is another in a series of wins for ATU, which vowed to put in place the model for organizing presented at the 2006 AFL-CIO Organizing Summit. Buoyed by their successes at Veolia and at First Transit in April, local union members are working to help workers at other transit companies, such as Laidlaw, join a union. Laidlaw is Denver’s only nonunion company operating city routes as a subcontractor. 

What makes these victories especially important, says ATU Organizing Director Charles Lester, is that this is the first experience for many of the locals in successfully helping workers join a union. 

The local members are the backbone of our success. These victories are all member driven. Local members come out and learn new techniques and then they take that and go out to organize. We are building power from within. 

One of the most emotional moments in the Veolia vote came a few hours before the vote count. One of the drivers had major surgery earlier in the day, but he was determined to cast his vote for the union. The local union secured a wheelchair and transported him to the company for the vote. When he was wheeled up to the doors of Veolia, he got up out of the chair and walked as best as he could into the polling location to cast his vote for ATU. 

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