On December 19th, 2025, Representative Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) led a letter with 14 of his colleagues to Alvand Transportation CEO Victor Alvandi, urging the company to come back to the table and negotiate with the Transportation Communications Union (TCU/IAM) members who voted to organize more than a year ago. Bus drivers at Alvand Transportation – a contractor for Amtrak that completes bus-throughway service for ticketed passengers – organized with TCU and won their union election in June of 2024.
The letter supports the Alvand bus drivers’ right to organize and warns the company against effort the abuse the bargaining process or target employees for exercising their rights:
“As elected Members of Congress, we stand firmly behind workers’ rights to organize and to bargain collectively…
…We believe that a fair and timely resolution is achievable if both parties commit themselves to good-faith negotiations. Any effort to frustrate, undermine, or otherwise abuse the bargaining process, or any attempt to disregard or target employees for exercising their right to a meaningful voice in the workplace could be a violation of federal law…”
One member who preferred to remain anonymous stated: “we organized with TCU because we were tired of the CEO’s favoritism, tired of being treated like garbage, and we wanted a voice to able to improve our lives as drivers.”
Unfortunately, since that vote, little progress has been made in contract negotiations, with the company and Mr. Alvandi himself has directly refused to negotiate in good faith or consider basic contract requests of their drivers.
“We believe our members’ asks are fair, just, and warranted – and many of the sticking points are exactly why these drivers chose to organize in the first place. Knowing Members of Congress from across the Los Angeles area are standing with our members means everything to them,” said TCU Organizing Director Sal Rodriguez.
“On behalf of our members at Alvand Transportation, we would like to thank Rep. Gomez and his colleagues for standing with our drivers, urging the company to bargain in good faith and warning against targeting our members for simply exercising their rights,” said Rodriguez.
The full text of the letter can be viewed here.
In addition to Rep. Gomez (CA-34), TCU/IAM would like to thank the following Members of Congress who signed the letter:
- Nanette Diaz Barragan (CA-44)
- Julia Brownley (CA-26)
- Judy Chu (CA-28)
- Gilbert Cisneros (CA-31)
- Laura Friedman (CA-30)
- Robert Garcia (CA-42)
- Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37)
- Ted Lieu (CA-36)
- Luz Rivas (CA-29)
- Linda Sanchez (CA-38)
- Brad Sherman (CA-32)
- Norma Torres (CA-35)
- Derek Tran (CA-45)
- George Whitesides (CA-27)