Parents Gird for Disruptions As Bus Drivers’ Strike Looms (in NYC)
Source: NYT
The last time Sherry Passante had to take all three of her children to their three schools, it ended badly. When she dropped off the younger ones at their schools, Derek, her son who has autism and who usually takes a school bus, started biting himself and hitting himself in the head. Then he lunged at her.
(...)
That routine, like those of about 150,000 schoolchildren, many of them with special needs, will be severely disrupted starting Wednesday morning, when drivers who belong to New York City’s largest union of school bus drivers go on strike — the first such strike in more than three decades.
At issue is Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s decision to solicit bids for 1,100 of the city’s 7,700 bus routes. He will not require that the winning companies hire the most experienced unionized drivers — a protection that workers have enjoyed for decades and that the union is demanding be included in the bids.
The mayor said that a ruling by New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, forbid the city from including the requirements, known as “employee protection provisions.” The union argues that the mayor is misreading the decision.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/nyregion/as-school-bus-drivers-strike-looms-parents-prepare-for-disruptions.html
Oh my, the second big-city labor strike in less than six months, after the Chicago teachers' strike? Don't know which mayor is more union-busting, Chicago's supposed Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel or New York City's anti-soda, ban-everything mayor Michael Bloomberg.
