New York, NY – More than 8,000 New York City school bus drivers and aides went on strike over job protection Wednesday morning, leaving some 152,000 students, many disabled, trying to find other ways to get to school.
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Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the strike started at 6 a.m. Wednesday. About 200 bus drivers and bus matrons, who help kids on and off buses, were assembled on picket lines in Queens.
“The first days will be extremely chaotic,” Walcott told 1010 WINS radio. “It hasn’t happened in New York City in over 33 years.”
Union head Michael Cordiello told a news conference that the drivers will strike until Mayor Michael 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,” said Cordiello, president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. “It is within his power to do so.”
Parents used subways, carpools and other alternatives to get their children to school, hitting slippery roads as sleet turned to rain around the city and temperatures were at or above freezing.
Peter Curry’s 7-year-old daughter, Maisy, is in a wheelchair and is usually picked up by a bus with a ramp. On Wednesday, he drove her from lower Manhattan to her school in the Chelsea neighborhood.
“It means transferring her to the car, breaking down the wheelchair, getting here, setting up the wheelchair, transferring her from the car, when normally she would just wheel right into the school bus,” Curry said. “She’s on oxygen. There’s a lot of equipment that has to be moved and transferred also.”
On Staten Island, Tangaline Whiten was more than 45 minutes late delivering her second-grade son to Staten Island Community Charter School, after first dropping off her daughter at Public School 60 about six miles away.
She said the distance and the extra traffic on the road made the prospect of a long strike upsetting, because it means her son would be consistently late. If the strike lasts, she said she’ll consider carpooling.
“Most of the parents where I’m at are working parents, so they’re finding it difficult to transport their kids, and especially to pick them up,” Whiten said. “I’m just fortunate that I’m a stay-at-home mom.”
Wednesday’s walkout was by the largest bus drivers’ union; some bus routes served by other unions were operating. The city Department of Education said approximately 3,000 bus routes out of 7,700 total were running.
Most of the city’s roughly 1.1 million public school students take public transportation or walk to school.
Those who rely on the buses include 54,000 special education students and others who live far from schools or transportation. They also include students who attend specialized school programs outside of their neighborhoods.
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.
In an industrial part of Queens’ Ridgewood neighborhood, several dozen union members showed up to stand in the cold rain in front of the Amboy Bus Company.
“Union! Power!” they chanted, pumping their fists into the air.
Driver Edwin Beniquez said Bloomberg “wants to put out these bids to pay less, below living wages, but he’ll end up with less experienced drivers.”
The city planned to distribute transit cards to students who can take buses and subways and to reimburse parents who would have to drive or take taxis.
The union announced Monday it would strike amid a complicated dispute.
The city doesn’t directly hire the bus drivers and matrons, who work for private companies that have city contracts. The workers make an average of about $35,000 a year, with a driver starting at $14 an hour and potentially making as much as $29 an hour over time, according to Cordiello.
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.
Asked if the city is prepared to go as long as the last school bus strike, which lasted 14 weeks in 1979, Walcott said on WINS Radio: “This will go however long it goes. We have systems in place to support our parents and students.”
The contracts expire June 30.
Maybe a silver lining of this strike and other recent events will be that families will go back to the old model of less reliance on government to do everything for them. Somehow, we grew up without the school buses taking us to school. We walked, rode bikes, took the bus and subway and somehow got to school every day. If parents care about their kids’ education, no matter what the circumstances (i.e. both parents working, younger siblings, kids with physical challenges, remote locations) they can figure out some way of improvising, even if it means moving closer to the school, taking off from work or letting the older kids travel themselves. We are reaching a point where the government cannot and should not be relied upon for every service we need. Let the government leave more of our money in our pockets and we will manage the way we always did. In the Alte Heim our tattas did not rely upon the Archduke of Warsaw or the Deputy Asst. Czar of Minsk to sent a wagon and driver to pick up the yinglach every morning and drive them to the beis medrash..
Finally even a liberal like Bloomberg realizes that paying $50,000.00 per year plus benefits another $25,000.00 per year for a 5 day a week job for approx 20 hours of work for 38 weeks is insane.
I walked to school every day and when it was too far I took the bus. So can these kids. The MTA just has to put on more buses not less during school hours. (and trains)
And I used to walk uphill both ways even in five feet of snow in the spring blah blah blah what’s with all the geezer comments on this story?
Greedy drivers, fire the unions!
To #5 Why do you think Hashem gave you feet?
The mayor will be losing revenue. Now the police trolls can’t issue tickets for moving violations.
its a different world today and is simplistic to say kids should take city bus. mayor Bloomberg should negotiate with these people. its unfair to cut their salaries in half.
While I commiserate with drivers regarding the threat to their job security, the numbers are staggering. If the city is paying over a billion dollars to bus 152,000 children, then they’re paying close to $7,000 per child. And if the average pay for the 8,000 employees is $35,000 that comes to about $280 million. Where’s the other $800 million dollars going to? Are they buying new buses every year?
Hey I pay $650.00 per kid for school transportation. Why should my tax dollars pay for others kids to ride to school?
I think any commenter suggesting he went to school himself and then extending that to disabled kids is a moron. Despite all your parents did they did not succeed in teaching you menthlichkeit.
Maybe it is time for the city to look at the unemployment rolls and put those people back to work. I am sure that there are highly qualified individuals who can at least drive a van if not a bus, and can be taught to drive a bus within a matter of days or a week or so. It would be much more beneficial for the city to put these individuals to work and get them off the unemployment lines.
It is appalling that the unions would take their issues and complaints out on the innocent children especially the special needs ones, and try to hold the city hostage because of them. Unions can either be the best thing that happened to employees and citizens or the worst. In these cases they are the worst. They can lose the jobs of employees while they risk nothing as Reagan prove when he replaced the striking air traffic controllers. I believe that the city needs to take a lesson from him and follow their lead. Children should never have to suffer for the benefit of unions and their huge egos. All these negotiations need to take place during school breaks and summer vacation.
a friend had a great suggestion. Get rid of the buses and give the parents $3000 towards transportation costs per child. The city cuts its cost into less than half and many parents would happily drive their kids and others for the $3000.
How come the city pays $39 a day to transport my child but their offering me less than $4? for a trip that is about 40 minutes round trip.