| | | I've talked about protests in CA are often a leading indicator for what happens in Greece and eventually in the US.
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sanjosemercurynews.ca.newsmemory.com
Tech bus protests highlight money gap
Angst over high rents taken out on company shuttles
By Dan Nakaso
dnakaso@mercurynews.com
SAN FRANCISCO — While small in scale, scattered protests targeting buses filled with tech workers have highlighted a larger issue: the growing gap between those benefiting from the Bay Area’s tech boom and those who have been left behind.
The protesters insist their anger is not aimed at the tech workers themselves, but rather at the inequities highlighted by the tech industry, which generates enormous wealth that provides big paychecks and attractive perks — including free transportation and free gourmet food — to workers whose ability to pay has helped push up rents. Many of those outside the tech industry, meanwhile, have seen their rents rise beyond their reach as their salaries have remained flat, or even fallen, over recent years.
“All of those buses you see lined up are a clear symbol of a larger story,” said Santa Clara University psychology professor Tom Plante. “It’s not that the buses are the problem. It’s what those buses represent that’s the problem.”
The average rent in San Francisco shot up 11.9 percent — to $3,096 per month — in the third quarter of this year from the same period last year. In Oakland, the average rental price is $2,124, up 10.3 percent from last year, according to Real-Facts, while San Jose’s average rent rose 9.2 percent, to $2,015.
Protesters say they also resent that the private buses in San Francisco pick up and drop off workers at spaces reserved for public Muni buses that are marked with signs warning of $271 penalties for violators — fines that protesters say should have added up to millions of dollars in penalties so far against Google, Yahoo, Apple and other companies.
Protesters block a Google bus using a Muni bus stop in San Francisco’s Mission District earlier this month.
COURTESY OF LESLIE DREYER
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