City DIARY
by Vivienne Walt
Newsday, October 16, 1994
Not uncommon among Manhattanites, Roosevelt Powe claims to have seenit all. He's driven stretch limousines the color of fresh snow, glidingdown avenues with singer Luther Vandross in the back. One time he drovebaseball great Jackie Robinson's widow; another time the soulful O-Jays.
Then earlier this month, he joined the more than 2,000 bicycle messengerswho whiz around town delivering legal documents, architectural blueprints,scented love letters and whatever else fax machines cannot handle. Butfor the chunking of his lock, Powe felt like that cycle-crazed kid again,back home in Birmingham, Ala., pounding the pedals with the fall air inhis lungs. Life was sweet.
And unlike his days as a limousine driver, there was an unexpected bonus:sex appeal. "If you drive a limo, you might have any kind of gig.But when you're a bike messenger, it means one thing: You got a job,"Powe says. "It's interesting how females react to you when you'vegot a job." What kind of job, though, is currently a hot topic amongmessengers.
Lock your bicycle to a pole any day of the week (as I do several timesa day) and this urban subculture will claim you for its own. Never mindthat you're wearing a business jacket and - totally uncool - a helmet.You will get advice on new locks, be consulted on lighting and told thelatest gossip on the street.
For weeks, the talk has centered on "the union" - Local 840of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which in June began tryingto organize messengers, many of whom work 40-hour weeks for less than $300,with no sick leave, health benefits, paid vacations or theft insurance.
Word spread fast. Messengers began cramming the Teamsters' open meetingsand turning up at the union's West 44th Street office.
"One guy comes in here, he's harvested crops in southern Georgia,and says he was better paid and better treated there," said Joel LeFevre,the local's secretary-treasurer, sitting in his office under a Norman Rockwellposter.
"These guys aren't even members of the working class."
Earlier this month, LeFevre petitioned the National Labor RelationsBoard to poll employees at two midtown companies: Complete Management Services- which recently cut messengers' per-run commission from $3 to $2 - andOrbit / Lightspeed.
If most employees vote to join, the Teamsters will begin negotiating.The companies' counterattack has begun. Complete Management offered itsemployees a cold-cuts dinner earlier this month, raffling a compact-discplayer to those who showed up for the management pep talk.
The messengers say they also have been shown videos arguing that unionsare a bad idea. And an Orbit flyer handed to messengers exhorts: "StaySecure and Union-Free: Vote No," adding: ". . . unions help thosewho do a bad job get paid the same as those who do a good job."
On Sept. 23, Orbit fired telephone operator Jennifer Roesch, 22, whoearned $275 a week and spearheaded the union campaign.
"I knew my job was on the line because I was organizing,"Roesch says.
"One day the subway was delayed and I was seven minutes late forwork. They fired me.
" That day, 20 employees signed up for the union, says Roesch,who has filed an unfair dismissal suit with the NLRB.
Orbit president Robert Wyatt says Roesch was repeatedly late, and thatLeFevre is desperate to organize messengers because the Teamsters faceshrinking revenue and membership. That is not unlike the messenger industryitself, struggling to survive in the age of modems and faxes.
Workers compensation payments from cycle accidents also are cripplingthem, Wyatt says. "What the union people are asking for isn't at allunreasonable," Wyatt concedes. "Unfortunately, it's not somethingthe market is prepared to bear."
Increasingly, companies prefer using foot messengers and vehicles.
For bike messengers, that's a dismal prospect. Sure, there are dangersand low pay. But there's also the thrill of slicing through traffic, weavingbetween trucks and spinning around grumpy pedestrians.
"We're out here because we love to be outdoors," says CompleteManagement messenger Buddha Davis, 30, whose almond-shaped eyes inspiredher nickname.
"You meet all kinds of people out here."
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