Domino’s Pizza delivery driver Jim Pohle could have quit when he saw a competitor offering an extra 25 cents an hour in wages and his bosses wouldn’t match it. But he decided instead to form the nation’s first pizza drivers union to successfully organize workers.
Now he represents 11 drivers as president of the American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers at the franchise where he has worked off and on for more than a dozen years. Experts say he has created a model for fast food workers wanting to organize in other locations.
“When they declared us tipped employees and refused to pay us the Florida minimum wage of $6.40, I was kind of angry. I came home that night and I told my buddy, I said ‘We are forming a union,’” he said.
Pohle said his friend, a fellow ex-Marine, “thought I was venting steam.” But the 37-year-old, who delivers pizzas because he likes to sleep late, smoke on the job and listen to the radio, got on the Internet and found St. Louis labor attorney Mark Potashnick.
Potashnick worked on failed organizing efforts by pizza workers in Ohio, Michigan and St. Louis, including those of the Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers, an earlier, failed attempt to unionize delivery drivers in Ohio and Nebraska. He coached Pohle on submitting a petition to the National Labor Relations Board, which recognized the union this summer.
Rodney Johnson, a regional director for the board, said the case appears to be the first of its kind. He has a petition pending from Pensacola-area pizza makers wanting to join Pohle’s union.
Tim McIntyre, a spokesman for Domino’s Pizza (DPZ), said that while the Pensacola franchise is independently owned and operated, the company is disappointed by the union vote.
“We do not believe it is necessary in our industry, and are surprised that the individual employees in that store voted to turn over their ability to represent themselves to their supervisor to someone else,” he said in a statement.
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