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Sidney Ho, a general manager at Flying Food Group, has requested intervention from the San Francisco Police Department in an ongoing labor strike at the company's facility on Littlefield Avenue. In a letter obtained by Sky Industry News, Ho said that the company has contacted police more than 20 times since the strike began on March 29. The strikers, represented by Teamsters Local 2785, are accused of blocking driveways, harassing drivers, and interfering with food deliveries bound for San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
"Many of the calls to the police that we have made in the past month were due to representatives of Local 2785 blocking our driveway preventing our vehicles from entering the roadway to go to the airport or preventing us from entering our driveway from the roadway," said Ho. "However, there have been more serious incidents including representatives of Local 2785 brake checking and attempting to run our trucks off the road on the way to SFO Airport, throwing objects at the windshield of our truck while the truck was moving and making homophobic slurs towards one of our female drivers. We have trained our employees how to behave with strikers and they do not respond to provocations by the strikers. Unfortunately, there have been a number of incidents between Local 2785 representatives and vendors that have resulted in threats of violence and objects being thrown at vehicles and we wish to do our best to avoid such incidents in the future by partnering with the Police Department."
According to the Teamsters group, the police have failed to act on these incidents due to First Amendment protections. However, Flying Food Group disputes this interpretation, arguing that blocking access to private property and threatening vendors falls outside lawful protest activity. The letter contrasts South San Francisco’s response with police in Burlingame and Inglewood, where officers reportedly forced strikers to clear driveways during previous disputes. "We are not aware of any court interpretation of the First Amendment which permits individuals to obstruct the public right-of-way for any period of time," Ho said in the letter.
