A standoff between striking school bus drivers and aides looking for job protections and a city administration that says those protections can’t legally be had has the potential to go on for some time, observers said, as parents scrambled for a second day to figure out alternatives for tens of thousands of students who need to get to school.
Union head Michael Cordiello said the drivers will strike until Mayor Bloomberg and the city agree to put a job security clause back into their contract.
“I came to urge the mayor to resolve this strike,” Cordiello, president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said on Tuesday. “It is within his power to do so.”
But Bloomberg said the strike “is about job guarantees that the union just can’t have.”
The city has put its contracts with private bus companies up for bid, aiming to cut costs. Local 1181 says drivers could suddenly lose their jobs when contracts expire in June.
Bloomberg has said the city must seek competitive bids to save money.
The union sought job protections for current drivers in the new contracts. The city said that the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, has barred it from including such provisions because of competitive bidding laws; the union said that’s not so.
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2 Responses
what the drivers REALLY want is an early winter break! 🙂
I have to say, I’m usually not so pro union but in this case I’m not so sure that the Mayor is right. I think this is bluff. Look at the City Buses from the MTA they are owned by the city and the drivers are still union members and went on strike on his watch. Are you telling me that Drivers will work with out joining a union? everything is union, even the Sanitation workers.
If you have a child on these buses I think, you can agree with me that most of these buses are well maintained. And I think once you start being stingy the service will be stingy as well. and the buses will be run down. I know for a fact that Atlantic Express in Brooklyn had a whole lot of of over 50-80 buses that got flooded in Sandy.