Spin is a short-hire/e-scooter company — one of those firms like Bird and Lime that fill city streets with future-ewaste vehicles that block wheelchairs. It's owned by Ford.
On Dec 5, workers at Spin's San Francisco office, voted to unionize, organized under Teamsters Local 665. The workers in the union those who recover and charge Spin scooters, who are employees (unlike those who perform the same duties for Bird and Lime, who are treated as contractors, though many of them will be reclassified as W2 employees under AB5, California's law that closes the loophole that allows companies to pretend that its employees are contractors in order to deny them benefits and protections).
Spin is one of four e-scooter companies authorized to operate in San Francisco, after the city cracked down on the thousands of rental scooters littering the early-adopter-packed streets earlier this year.Whether the move will inspire other e-scooter workforces, even those whose parent companies aren't the likes of Ford, which might be more used to dealing with unions than your average startup, remains to be seen.
Spin's San Francisco staff becomes the first e-scooter workforce to unionize [Caitlin Welsh/Mashable]
