San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Cheap rides keep mechanic off streets
high school diploma, mechanic training or even a driver’s license, which prevents some people from working for Uber or DoorDash, for example. Matt Tran, co-founder and head of operations at the Bayview workshop, said recruiters mostly look for a strong work ethic and an ability to pick up new skills quickly. When James was 21, in the late ’80s, he worked at a tire shop in Sacramento. When the clutch went out in his creamsicle-colored Datsun 240Z classic car, his boss helped him to order new parts and showed James how to fix it.
The experience “set a fire inside me,” James said. He continued to work at the tire shop and later a hydraulic pump repair service in San Mateo, while tinkering
Ship traffic
Due to arrive today
Due to depart today with cars on the side. “No matter where I go, if the car breaks down — short of a new engine — I can fix it,” James said.
But after becoming homeless, James stayed in shelters in San Francisco from 2015 to last year, when he said his name floated to the top of a waiting list and a city agency helped him find affordable housing.
The scooters first appeared on city streets and sidewalks in February, when a handful of startups introduced them without permission from city agencies.
James signed up with Bird to be a charger, an independent contractor who roams the city picking up scooters whose batteries had run low and charging them at home before returning them to the streets.
When Bird left town as a result of the city’s new scooter-rental permit process, the startup fired its chargers. Since they were contractors, they didn’t get any warning or severance.
James couldn’t return to his job fixing hydraulic pumps in San Mateo. In 2017, a car ran a stop sign and collided with his moped, breaking his left leg and hip. He has a limp and can’t carry much weight.
“I was applying for Social Security when I found this job,” James said. He thought he would live the rest of his life reliant on government aid. “Then I saw the ad for fixing scooters. It was a real job.”
Skip promised to be a different kind of scooter company.
A lengthy application for one of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s prized permits told the story of a startup from San Francisco that would hire locally, provide skills training, and donate up to $500,000 to organizations such as City College of San Francisco that offer vocational courses for mechanics.
Skip’s Tran says the company is making good on its promise. It sends employees to recruit and train riders at Sunday Streets festivals in the Excelsior and the Tenderloin. Recruiters post job flyers in employment offices and shelters and hold regular community meetings.
“I think that was something San Francisco was looking for,” Tran said.
Several companies that were excluded from the scooter trial are contesting the city’s decision, saying the process was unfair.
Technicians are classified as employees, not independent contractors, and earn at least minimum wage. They’re also eligible for health insurance, Tran said.
Scoot, the other scooter company with a permit to operate in San Francisco, has more than 40 full-time mechanics. Most are regular employees and receive benefits and shares in the company, according to Scoot.
Bird, which still operates in Oakland, hires technicians as contractors.
After clocking in to a 4 p.m. shift on his phone, James scanned a large rack of scooters looking for one that called to him. Electronic dance music droned in the background, and about a dozen workers — mostly young black men — sat at their desks tinkering with scooters.
Some had electrical wires clipped; others were missing all the stickers with Skip’s logo, probably because people tried to steal them, James said. He’s seen scooters stripped for parts and set on fire.
“There’s a certain percentage of people who don’t like the scooters, just because. So they figure ... ‘I’m going to hurt this company where they’re living,’ ” he said.
It hurts him to see the vandalized ones.
“My heart goes into this thing,” James said, grabbing a scooter’s handlebars. “It has a job to do, and it does its job well. If it’s fixed — everything’s oiled and greased and working right — it will carry a 250-pound man up a hill.
“Without this, I could end up anywhere. I could end up homeless again, or I could end up doing something stupid. But these guys provide me a job. They provide me a skill set. They pay me a livable wage. I paid my rent for the first time today. It was a huge day for me.”
Melia Russell is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: melia.russell @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meliarobin