A Domino Pizza delivery driver in Pensacola Florida has succeeded in organizing eleven of his co-workers, the first such successful organizing effort of pizza delivery drivers in the U.S. As president of the newly formed American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers, Inc., Jim Pohle may have started a trend that will drive up the cost of calling for a pizza as well as drive up the costs of pizza dough. This aborning trend will not only affect pizza deliverers, but also all personnel who deliver for a vast array of fast food restaurants.
Pohle was helped in his efforts by a pro-union labor lawyer who had attempted to organize other pizza delivery drivers in the past but had not met with success. The new efforts paid off this time when the National Labor Relations Board accepted a petition submitted by Pohle and recognized his union.
His success and the recent efforts by others to organize workers at Starbucks mean that service workers throughout the U.S. will be likely candidates for a host of union organizers. For unions, service workers represent a large pool of potential new union members; as such, they also pose a challenge for owners of fast food franchises. If the owners of fast food restaurants don’t put in place programs to ward off unionization, they will find their workers being organized by highly aggressive organizers who have the backing of multi-million dollar national unions.
