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(Bloomberg) — Drivers for a service that shuttles technology workers from San Francisco to Silicon Valley voted to join the Teamsters union, seeking to boost wages in a region that is becoming increasingly costly. Employees of Compass Transportation voted 104 to 38 in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, California, the union said in a Feb. 27 statement. The thriving technology industry around San Francisco has kindled demand for transportation from the city to the outlying headquarters of companies such as Apple Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. Neighborhood activists in San Francisco have organized blockades to protest the shuttle services as a symbol of gentrification and income inequality, as the influx of highly paid tech workers has helped create the highest housing rents in the U.S. “We need wages commensurate with what it costs to live in this area, but it’s not just about wages,” Tracy Kelley, a Compass driver, said in the statement. “It’s about having better working conditions.”
Kelley normally leaves home at 6 a.m. and doesn’t return until after 8 p.m., the statement said.
In November, 87 shuttle-bus drivers for Loop Transportation, a contractor for Facebook Inc., voted to join the same Teamsters local union. On Feb. 21, they signed a new contract boosting their pay from $18 an hour to $24.50 an hour. Compass’s drivers bring workers to and from Apple, Yahoo, EBay Inc., Zynga Inc., Genentech Inc. and Amtrak.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lauren Coleman-Lochner in New York at llochner@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net Bernard Kohn, Laurence Arnold