Protesters Block Apple and Google Buses In California 653
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Business Insider reports that protesters have stopped a bus filled with Apple employees in San Francisco and a Google bus in Oakland. Tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook provide free buses that take their employees from San Francisco to their headquarters in the suburbs. Protesters are mad at the tech companies because the wealthy tech employees have driven up the price of housing in San Francisco, which is pricing out some people. The buses also use public transit stops, and some protesters think that's wrong. Between 70 and 100 protesters gathered for the blockade of Apple private tech shuttle to protest evictions in the city of San Francisco. The activists in San Francisco were from Eviction Free San Francisco, Our Mission No Eviction, Causa Justa /Just Cause. Protesters stood in front of a white shuttle bus holding banners and signs. Some peeked through cardboard signs fashioned in the shape of place markers on Google maps, with "Evicted" written across the front. Meanwhile violence occurred in Oakland, according to reports from IndyBay, as protesters unfurled two giant banners reading "TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here" and "Fuck off Google" and "a person appeared from behind the bus and quickly smashed the whole of the rear window, making glass rain down on the street. Cold air blew inside the bus and the blockaders with their banners departed." Two weeks ago, protesters stopped a Google bus."
Re:How is it their fault? (Score:3, Informative)
And a very bad thing for the renters, you know, the poor.
short sighted (Score:5, Informative)
As I recall, housing prices in SF and environs were going astronomical long before Google existed. And seeing as Apple's been there since the 70's, it seems rather odd that "just recently" Apple is responsible for a price rise in housing.
Re:How is it their fault? (Score:5, Informative)
Also a bad thing for people who want to stay in the home they have lived in for years but can no longer afford the increased property taxes.
That is the fundamental flaw of property taxes - the taxes can go up even if your property stayed exactly the same just because a bunch of people around you overpaid.
Re:You miss the point. (Score:1, Informative)
A disparity of third-world proportions? Get real.
The disparity in the US is huge, yes, but being poor in the US is a picnic compared to the third world. No one in the US needs to starve. You have a roof over your head. You have at least some money for luxuries like a mobile phone and a TV. Comparing this to third world poverty shows that you've never been to the third world.
These idiots want to drive the high-tech companies out of San Francisco? Maybe they should look at places like Detroit, where most industry is gone. They are idiots, pure and simple.
Clueless (Score:5, Informative)
The disparity in the US is huge, yes, but being poor in the US is a picnic compared to the third world. No one in the US needs to starve. You have a roof over your head. You have at least some money for luxuries like a mobile phone and a TV. Comparing this to third world poverty shows that you've never been to the third world.
That is false and you have absoutely no clue. See the chart. [theatlantic.com] We are on the level of some African countries - and some of those Third World shitholes are actually better than we are.
The rest of that statement show someone who has a very very cloistered life.
Taking too many company buses and living on the company "campus" are we?
They are idiots, pure and simple.
That's what I think of all the SF tech companies. They are all just advertising companies with a delusion of being innovative.
Re: Hmm. (Score:2, Informative)
Mod Parent Down - Factually WAY OFF (Score:4, Informative)
This just in: The homeless and unemployed mobbed a bus full of people perceived to be rich, perhaps unaware of the 60-80 hour work weeks endured by software engineers, that once you take that into consideration, many in the industry make at, or less, than minimum wage.
The *entry level* salaries for Google and Apple engineers in Silicon Valley [visual.ly] is $105K. That's over fifty bucks an hour assuming a 40-hour work week.
Now assume an 80-hour work week, so it's still over 25 bucks an hour. And these engineers get *lots* of perks, including high end health care plans and free transportation to work. Bear in mind that a substantial chunk of a working class salary is spent taking care of these kinds of expenses, and there are lots of non-monetary hassles associated with maintaining a car in a big city.
Re:more likely they've been able to live in SF (Score:5, Informative)
Same thing happened in Aberdeen, Scotland during the 1980's. Oil workers were getting paid £50K/year for two week on/two week off contracts working on the oil rigs. Oil workers liked being in the city for all the pubs and nightclubs. That shot up the prices of homes such that other people such as teachers, technicians, nurses couldn't afford to rent never mind buy flats or apartments. Teachers even went on strike over this. The solution? Teachers got pay rises so they could afford cars and commute in from 10 miles away, and they converted the school playgrounds into car parks. For nursing the solution was just to bring in cheap foreign labor.
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Informative)
So you are living somewhere, making ends meet, you have friends, family, kids in school. Some tech companies come along and now you can't afford to live in your home any more. GTFO?
Moving to some little town in the middle of nowhere isn't a solution either. Where are the jobs?