Pizza Delivery Drivers Form Union

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Eleven Domino's employees hoping to make a little more dough and get a bigger slice of the profits have formed the nation's first union of pizza delivery drivers.

The union organizing drive was started by Jim Pohle, a 37-year-old Domino's driver who said he delivers pizzas because he likes to sleep late, smoke on the job and listen to the radio.

"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. We are forming a union,'" he said.

Through the Internet, he found St. Louis labor attorney Mark Potashnick, who worked on unsuccessful organizing efforts by pizza workers in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri.

Rodney Johnson, a regional director for NLRB, said the union appears to be the first of its kind.

Tim McIntyre, a spokesman for Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Domino's Pizza Inc., said that while the Pensacola franchise was independently owned and operated, the company was 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.