City Plans for Strike by School Bus Drivers
By FERNANDA SANTOS
The Bloomberg administration set in motion on Friday a broad contingency plan for a school bus drivers’ strike, sending letters to parents and principals and buying hundreds of thousands of MetroCards for students who could be left without transportation. But a statement by the union’s president indicated that the timing of a strike, if one were to be called, was unclear.
A strike would affect more than 150,000 New York City public school students, from preschool through 12th grade, including about 70,000 children who receive special education services.
In his letter, the city schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, called the strike a “strong” and “immediate” possibility. But the bus drivers’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, offered no clues about its timing. In a statement, its president, Michael Cordiello, said that a strike was likely but that “there are no immediate plans for one.” The union’s members are expected to discuss the strike, the threat of which is centered on job protections for the union’s most senior members, at a meeting on Tuesday.
Nonetheless, the city spared no effort to plan for the event, drawing up detailed rules, conditions and safeguards. Field trips requiring yellow-bus service would be canceled, but after-school programs would continue. Delays of up to two hours would be forgiven, and absences would be excused from students’ attendance records if they happened as a result of the strike.
The city’s Education Department spent $1.3 million buying 300,000 MetroCards to give to students who are picked up at bus stops and to parents whose children might need an escort to school because they are disabled or too young to ride the subway on their own. Parents who drive will be reimbursed based on the number of miles traveled, while those who use another type of private transportation can turn in receipts for reimbursement.
“We are deeply concerned about the impact of a strike on your schools and school communities,” Mr. Walcott wrote to principals.
On Friday, the city issued a request for bids for the transportation of roughly 14,000 preschool students who have special needs. Unlike existing contracts governing the transportation of older students, the agreements with drivers of preschool students would not require new companies picked for the job to hire, by order of seniority and at the same rate of pay, bus drivers, matrons and other workers from the companies that lost the contracts.
The specter of a strike is an interesting turn of events for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. For years, his administration had fought alongside the union to keep the seniority-based protections in the contracts, in part because removing them could have prompted the union to strike. In July, however, the city made an about-face, asking Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to veto a bill it had helped develop that would have extended the protections to bus contracts for preschool students who receive special education services.
Mr. Cuomo did just that in September, citing a decision by the State Court of Appeals that including such protections drives up cost and drives away competition. (The protections are part of the contracts, which expire in December 2012, that govern the transportation of about 138,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.)
In a news conference at City Hall on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg characterized a possible strike as “illegal” and the union’s behavior as “outrageous” based on the court ruling.
He said the city had asked the National Labor Relations Board for a ruling of unfair labor practice against the union, whose members are employed not by the city, but by private companies with which the city arranges contracts to provide transportation.
In the meantime, a coalition representing the four largest school-transportation companies issued a statement, saying the companies would seek a court injunction to prevent a strike. “We’re asking for cooler heads to prevail and for the drivers to stay on the job,” Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said in an interview.
Most of the students who would be affected by the strike live in Brooklyn and Queens, some of them outside the city’s public transportation grid. About 102,000 of them are in elementary school; of those, approximately 30,000 have special needs, and some of them require specific travel accommodations, limited travel time and door-to-door service.
Joe Williams, who lives in Crown Heights, has a 12-year-old son who is picked up at home and taken to a school in Bensonhurst, another Brooklyn neighborhood a few miles away. Mr. Williams said it would be “very selfish” if the bus drivers were to strike, adding that the job protections they are demanding are “a luxury they don’t want to give up.”
“There is no consideration for the people they are transporting, the most vulnerable,” he added.
The bus drivers’ union has threatened to strike before, most recently last year, over proposed changes to their health benefits.
The last time it did strike was in 1979, and the work stoppage lasted three months. The city employed extreme measures, like using buses that took inmates to the jails on Rikers Island to take children to school.
A strike would affect more than 150,000 New York City public school students, from preschool through 12th grade, including about 70,000 children who receive special education services.
In his letter, the city schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, called the strike a “strong” and “immediate” possibility. But the bus drivers’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, offered no clues about its timing. In a statement, its president, Michael Cordiello, said that a strike was likely but that “there are no immediate plans for one.” The union’s members are expected to discuss the strike, the threat of which is centered on job protections for the union’s most senior members, at a meeting on Tuesday.
Nonetheless, the city spared no effort to plan for the event, drawing up detailed rules, conditions and safeguards. Field trips requiring yellow-bus service would be canceled, but after-school programs would continue. Delays of up to two hours would be forgiven, and absences would be excused from students’ attendance records if they happened as a result of the strike.
The city’s Education Department spent $1.3 million buying 300,000 MetroCards to give to students who are picked up at bus stops and to parents whose children might need an escort to school because they are disabled or too young to ride the subway on their own. Parents who drive will be reimbursed based on the number of miles traveled, while those who use another type of private transportation can turn in receipts for reimbursement.
“We are deeply concerned about the impact of a strike on your schools and school communities,” Mr. Walcott wrote to principals.
On Friday, the city issued a request for bids for the transportation of roughly 14,000 preschool students who have special needs. Unlike existing contracts governing the transportation of older students, the agreements with drivers of preschool students would not require new companies picked for the job to hire, by order of seniority and at the same rate of pay, bus drivers, matrons and other workers from the companies that lost the contracts.
The specter of a strike is an interesting turn of events for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. For years, his administration had fought alongside the union to keep the seniority-based protections in the contracts, in part because removing them could have prompted the union to strike. In July, however, the city made an about-face, asking Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to veto a bill it had helped develop that would have extended the protections to bus contracts for preschool students who receive special education services.
Mr. Cuomo did just that in September, citing a decision by the State Court of Appeals that including such protections drives up cost and drives away competition. (The protections are part of the contracts, which expire in December 2012, that govern the transportation of about 138,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.)
In a news conference at City Hall on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg characterized a possible strike as “illegal” and the union’s behavior as “outrageous” based on the court ruling.
He said the city had asked the National Labor Relations Board for a ruling of unfair labor practice against the union, whose members are employed not by the city, but by private companies with which the city arranges contracts to provide transportation.
In the meantime, a coalition representing the four largest school-transportation companies issued a statement, saying the companies would seek a court injunction to prevent a strike. “We’re asking for cooler heads to prevail and for the drivers to stay on the job,” Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said in an interview.
Most of the students who would be affected by the strike live in Brooklyn and Queens, some of them outside the city’s public transportation grid. About 102,000 of them are in elementary school; of those, approximately 30,000 have special needs, and some of them require specific travel accommodations, limited travel time and door-to-door service.
Joe Williams, who lives in Crown Heights, has a 12-year-old son who is picked up at home and taken to a school in Bensonhurst, another Brooklyn neighborhood a few miles away. Mr. Williams said it would be “very selfish” if the bus drivers were to strike, adding that the job protections they are demanding are “a luxury they don’t want to give up.”
“There is no consideration for the people they are transporting, the most vulnerable,” he added.
The bus drivers’ union has threatened to strike before, most recently last year, over proposed changes to their health benefits.
The last time it did strike was in 1979, and the work stoppage lasted three months. The city employed extreme measures, like using buses that took inmates to the jails on Rikers Island to take children to school.
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