Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:29] Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman is a features reporter for KQED.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:02:34] And when we say Coliseum workers, we’re talking about a bunch of different kinds of employment. On one hand, you have people who work directly for the A’s, right, employees of the A’s. But there’s also all these other third party vendors that operate in the Coliseums under contracts from the A’s, right? Essentially subcontractors. So employees of Aramark, they’re the people that sell you hot dogs and employees of Allied Universal, They’re the people that check your bags. When you go to the fan store to buy your A’s hat, that’s employees of Fanatics. So it’s this web of third party vendors that kind of make the whole operation run. One thing I learned about these Coliseum workers is that they sort of piece together their living in the Bay Area by working multiple different sports venues. So people that work at the Coliseum, a lot of times also work at the Giants Stadium, or they work at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, or they, you know, they work concerts. So it’s kind of part of this web of work that people rely on to make it. I don’t have an exact count on how many people work at Coliseum. You know, it varies depending on how big the games are. It’s safe to say that there are definitely hundreds and likely over a thousand people who would have worked, you know, at an A’s game.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:55] So there was all this worry about what was gonna happen to all these Coliseum workers who were losing this sort of steady stream of income and being able to rely on the A’s games. But the A’s did make some promises to help these workers once they left, right?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:04:12] In response to the worry by workers of, you know, what was gonna happen to them, they announced this fund. And it was basically a $1 million pot of money called the Oakland Coliseum Vendor Assistance Fund. And this was specifically targeted at third party vendors, so people that weren’t employed by the team. When the A’s announced this fund, they really displayed it as this thing where they were responding to the needs of these longtime workers.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:39] So it sounds like the A’s made this promise to provide some sort of help to some of these Coliseum workers who were worried about losing their jobs. And then the A’s finally in September had their last game. It was this whole thing. People were calling off work to go to this game. It was a huge goodbye. And then in November, you get a tip. What happened?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:05:02] I got a tip from one of the people that I interviewed while I was doing my reporting about, you know, what was gonna happen to these workers. And they basically told me that they had a colleague who had applied for this fund, but was denied. So I gave her a call.
Erica Quinonez [00:05:15] Okay, hello?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:05:16] Yeah, hi. This woman is named Erica Quinonez. She worked security at the Oakland Coliseum from 2017 to 2024, which was the last A’s season at the ballpark.
Erica Quinonez [00:05:26] I worked as a security supervisor at Gate C at the Oakland Coliseum.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:05:33] there was kind of a couple different companies that actually did security at the Coliseum from that time. It was Landmark for a while, but then eventually Allied Universal got the contract to do security, and they were one of these companies that was listed on this Oakland Coliseum vendor assistance fund.
Erica Quinonez [00:05:49] I worked every game I could. I mostly worked like the Thursdays and Sundays games.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:05:55] She told me that she worked as many games as she could during that time and she really relied on it to make a living.
Erica Quinonez [00:06:03] You know, those 80-something games a season, as a supervisor making, you know, pretty decent money, you know $20-something dollars an hour and having that extra, you now, that extra money. It really, really helped.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:17] And so theoretically, she is someone who is eligible for these funds. What were people like Erica told to do in order to get some of this money?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:06:27] Yeah, so theoretically Erica was eligible, and the application was pretty straightforward. Basically, people just had to be employed by one of these five vendors. Erica was employed by Allied Universal, so check. They had to work a certain amount of hours between the 2023 and 2024 season. So basically, you know, if you’re gonna get money from this fund, then you have to work for us a certain amount. And then they just had to provide some basic personal information. And then, they submitted their application to this company called Relief Fund Services Group, which was tasked with sort of handling all the applications for this fund. And then applicants were told to get in touch with the A’s People Operations Department if they had any questions.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:18] And how much money could someone like Erica potentially get from this fund?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:07:23] According to the application, someone like Erica could get between $250 and $2,500 in the form of a taxable grant depending on if their years of service and the average hours worked. Erica told me she made around $20 an hour working at the Coliseum, so that’s about a week of work if she got about the median of what the fund would have given out. The A’s announced this fund and she’s like… Yes, like I need this money.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:57] So she submitted her application, she did everything she was asked to do. Then what happened?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:08:03] When I called Erica, she explained to me that she heard from a co-worker that people from the Union City branch of Allied Universal weren’t eligible for the fund. And this was interesting because it wasn’t something that was listed on the application. You know, as I said before, the application was pretty clear, it seemed pretty straightforward. So she emailed A’s People Operations, as the application said, and said, why am I not getting this money? And why are people being denied? Erica shared an email with me that she got in response from A’s People Operations and it said, quote, in order to be eligible for the grant, employees needed to be regularly stationed at the Oakland branch, not Union City or Chase Center. Allied confirmed you were stationed at the Union City branch. If you believe this to be a mistake, please reach out to Allied directly to resolve.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:55] What does that even mean? I mean, she went to the games in Oakland to do the work, right?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:09:00] Yeah, so as far as I can tell, I mean, a good starting point is that Allied Universal is a huge international company and they have offices all over. So what it sounds like happened is that Erica was sort of based out of this Union City office in the eyes of Allied. Because she wasn’t based out the Oakland office, she was not eligible for this fund.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:24] So she’s essentially denied on a sort of technicality, it sounds like.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:09:29] That’s what it seems like.
Erica Quinonez [00:09:31] Yeah, I’m still confused as to why we we’re not getting the money or why we didn’t get the money, because a lot of us have worked there like I like I worked there for seven years with a different company, but it was the same. It was the same thing.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:09:44] Erica said she reached out to her manager and the managers according to Erica said, you know, I tried to go to bat for you guys, but this is how the A’s want to spend their money it’s their money and there’s nothing we can do
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:02] I mean, it seems like she was really kind of banking on this money to help her in between jobs. I mean would she tell you about what it meant for her to not get any of this money?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:10:15] So Erica told me that she had actually decided to leave the Bay Area due to this loss of work from the A’s leaving town.
Erica Quinonez [00:10:23] I could have used that money, like I really could have, it could have helped me move, like it could’ve helped, you know, I just had a baby too, like 11 months ago, so.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:10:32] All of these things made her really look forward to receiving that little bit of money to kind of help her with that transition.
Erica Quinonez [00:10:40] I was really expecting that. I was like, yeah, this is gonna help me move. Like, and then when we didn’t get it, I’m like, oh, man. Like, okay, what are we going to do now?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:55] I mean, Azul, this is kind of, I feel like, what everyone was so worried about, right? With the A’s leaving and what would happen to the Coliseum workers, I mean it’s kind of it feels like the worst case scenario here. I mean did other workers you hear from struggle to get this money from the A’s Farewell Fund as well?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:11:18] I was able to talk to two other employees of Allied Universal and they told me that they also applied to the fund but didn’t ever hear anything back.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:35] Coming up, what’s next for Coliseum Workers? Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:21] It sounds like not a lot of clarity on who has actually gotten this money or not, how many people have actually benefited from it, but you have heard from a handful of people who have not. Did you hear from anyone who did get money?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:12:36] I did speak to two people who did get money from the fund. One of them was Bob Rosenthal.
Bob Rosenthal [00:12:43] I worked 56 years, this would have been my 57th year working for the A’s.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:12:49] He said that he applied for the fund, didn’t have any issues, got some money and a reasonable amount of time.
Bob Rosenthal [00:12:56] To be honest, it wasn’t a ton of money, but I was grateful for what they did send us and it did help, you know, as far as putting food on the table and because obviously I was unemployed at the time.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:13:09] I spoke to another one of his co-workers, a woman named Julie Silva.
Julie Silva [00:13:14] I’m a lifelong A’s fan. I used to go to that stadium two games as a kid with my mom.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:13:20] She had worked at the Coliseum for 15 years, doing things like retail and warehouse work. She told me that she got $1,500 from the fund.
Julie Silva [00:13:29] I mean, it kind of came in like a little bit before the holidays, so, you know, it kinda helped me pay down a couple of bills.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:13:38] And she felt good about that, but she also felt like the team could have done better.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:13:43] You mean they could have been more generous with the money they were giving?
Julie Silva [00:13:48] I felt so. I mean, the owner of the team’s got billions of dollars.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:13:57] If you do the math, she worked there 15 years, she got $1,500, that’s $100 for every year of service.
Julie Silva [00:14:04] For some people that had been there longer and got the maximum, it wasn’t even that much. You know, it was even $100 for every year they worked there and I just felt like that was kind of… kind of chintzy, for lack of a better word. Kind of cheap.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:25] I mean, Azul, how has the A’s responded to these claims?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:14:30] I reached out to the A’s for comment about this whole story. We wanted to know some basic details. How many people got money from this fund? How many didn’t? Was the full $1 million disbursed? Or what was the average disbursement from the fund? When I sent that email, they asked me for more information, which I gave them. And then they asked to send them a list of questions. I did that, and then they just stopped responding to my emails. I followed up numerous times and I’ve gotten no response. Similarly, I asked Allied Universal for comment. They asked for more information, and when I gave that to them, they also stopped responding to my emails. Relief Fund Services Group, which is the company that was charged with handling the applications, they also didn’t respond to requests for comment, so I’ve kinda gotten radio silence from anyone who was related to giving out this money.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:15:22] So Azul, you heard from three workers so far who told you they have not gotten money from this fund. Could there be more?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:15:30] Yeah, I will say one part of reporting the story that was challenging was the fact that a lot of these workers still work for these companies, right? Just because the A’s are gone doesn’t mean they’re not employed by Allied Universal anymore. In fact, they’re relying on Allied Universal to get them employment at other venues. So it was really difficult to find people that were willing to talk to me because they’re not authorized to talk media. That being said, there definitely could be more people that were affected by not getting money from this fund without the A’s telling us how many people were denied or how many got money. With the workers themselves reluctant to talk to press, we just can’t say. But one worker did tell me that there were likely dozens of people from the Union City branch that worked at the Coliseum. So it’s very possible that more people could have missed out on money from the fund.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:29] I mean, where has this left the Coliseum workers that you spoke with Azul?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:16:33] So some have been able to adapt. I talked to some Coliseum workers who said, I have more work than I’ve ever had. We’re seeing the Valkyries in town, the Roots, the Major League Cricket, the Ballers. We’re seen this kind of groundswell of new sports coming to town that is providing some opportunities for people to work. Other people like Julie Silva told me that this is really hurting their bottom line.
Julie Silva [00:16:58] It’s going to be a huge impact because it’s almost half of my income that I lose.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:17:08] Many of these workers grew up in the Bay Area, came to the Coliseum with their parents as kids, are living this dream of being able to work at the stadium where their favorite team plays, and now it just gets pulled out from under them. So there’s also that emotional cost to these workers. One worker told me that it feels like it was just kind of all for nothing if the team isn’t even gonna recognize all their years of service.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:17:38] Well, I really appreciate your reporting and thank you so much for sharing with us, I appreciate it.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:17:44] Welcome, thanks.
