Another selfish union that needs to be broken

[Big Pimpin]

NEW YORK (AP) ? More than 8,000 New York City school bus drivers and matrons went on strike over job protection Wednesday morning, leaving some 152,000 students, many disabled, trying to find other ways to get to school.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the strike started at 6 a.m. Wednesday. About 100 bus drivers and bus matrons were assembled on picket lines in the Queens section of the city.

"The first days will be extremely chaotic," Walcott told 1010 WINS radio. "It hasn't happened in New York City in over 33 years."

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.

Parents have made plans to use subways, carpools and other alternatives.

The city has put its contracts with private bus companies up for bid, aiming to cut costs. The Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union says drivers could suddenly lose their jobs when contracts expire in June.

The city plans to distribute transit cards to students who could take buses and subways and to reimburse parents who would have to drive or take taxis.
"We will get our children to school," Walcott said.

To do that, some parents had pieced together a patchwork of plans, such as a driving one child to one school and arranging a carpool to take a sibling to another school.

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 union President Michael Cordiello.

Mayor Michael 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.

"How is it illegal to provide the most experienced drivers and matrons in the school buses?" Cordiello asked Tuesday.

The contracts expire June 30.

 

[Zaphod]

Apparently you don't know the cost of living in and around NYC. $14/hour isn't dick. If it's important enough to get kids to school it's important enough to pay a decent wage to those getting them there.

 

[heckler7]

$14 wont even buy you a slice of pizza and a coke

 

[oufinny]

I agree on the wage, you will not hear me agree their jobs should be guaranteed. Do your job well, show up on time, don't be drunk/on drugs and get kids there safe. If you do that, you have nothing to fear about job security.

 

[IronAddict]

Say those unions do get broken up, what happens to those drivers then ? Beside losing their job.

They'll hire new drivers who will make considerably less than 14$ an hour.

 

[oufinny]

Say those unions do get broken up, what happens to those drivers then ? Beside losing their job.

They'll hire new drivers who will make considerably less than 14$ an hour.

No one is arguing the fact they need wage protection, job performance has to be considered though. New York is so corrupt and mafia ran they will get what they want.

 

[Big Pimpin]

The story isn't about their wages, its about the selfish bastards shutting down school bus service over wanting a guaranteed job. There's a time and place for everything, but get the rugrats to school in the meantime.

 

[IronAddict]

No one is arguing the fact they need wage protection, job performance has to be considered though. New York is so corrupt and mafia ran they will get what they want.

Agreed. Just a portrayal of the times we live in, everone wants some job protection. It's just too bad those kids not getting to school had to be used as their bargaining leverage.

 

[Jimmyinkedup]

The story isn't about their wages, its about the selfish bastards shutting down school bus service over wanting a guaranteed job. There's a time and place for everything, but get the rugrats to school in the meantime.

I couldnt agree more.
This is liking holding the city hostage at the expense of children. In some ways akin to blackmail. Hell many major cities already rely solely on public transportation or private transport to get children to school.

 

[Zaphod]

I agree on the wage, you will not hear me agree their jobs should be guaranteed. Do your job well, show up on time, don't be drunk/on drugs and get kids there safe. If you do that, you have nothing to fear about job security.

Getting the kids there safe apparently doesn't help job security. The desire to pay low wages to an outside contractor with the balance going to that contract company, probably more than the difference at that. So there really isn't a savings. Probably the result of kickbacks.

 

[Zaphod]

The story isn't about their wages, its about the selfish bastards shutting down school bus service over wanting a guaranteed job. There's a time and place for everything, but get the rugrats to school in the meantime.

Selfish to keep a barely subsistence level job? That isn't selfish, that's self preservation. Would you rather they keep working or have them on welfare with their replacements making even less, also requiring public assistance?

 

[oufinny]

Getting the kids there safe apparently doesn't help job security. The desire to pay low wages to an outside contractor with the balance going to that contract company, probably more than the difference at that. So there really isn't a savings. Probably the result of kickbacks.

As stated, corruption abounds inNYC.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Another boring thread stated by an OP cunt.

 

[Big Pimpin]

Another boring thread stated by an OP cunt.

I own you like I own your mother's and sister's asshole.

 

[Renaissance Man]

^^^ Do you know Coolhand bra ?

 

[Gissurjon]

I couldnt agree more.
This is liking holding the city hostage at the expense of children. In some ways akin to blackmail. Hell many major cities already rely solely on public transportation or private transport to get children to school.

Duh, that is how a strike works. Nobody can go on a strike with out affecting grown people, kids, grandmothers, disabled people, etc. A strike doesn't work if there is no damage done to the "other side" by said strike.

 

[Gissurjon]

I agree on the wage, you will not hear me agree their jobs should be guaranteed. Do your job well, show up on time, don't be drunk/on drugs and get kids there safe. If you do that, you have nothing to fear about job security.

Bro you know you are bullshitting. People lose their job every single fckn day without having gotten drunk, been on drugs, or demonstrated poor job performance.

 

[Bowden]

I agree on the wage, you will not hear me agree their jobs should be guaranteed. Do your job well, show up on time, don't be drunk/on drugs and get kids there safe. If you do that, you have nothing to fear about job security.

Are you serious?
Job security?
No such thing anymore.
In the industry I work in I have seen highly competent and dedicated people with excellent skill sets that never missed a day of work layed off and their jobs transferred offshore to low cost areas by executives just to increase org cost margins and meet/beat wall street quarterly EPS estimates related to agendas of increasing executive stock option values.

The result is those people go on unemployment benefits at tax payer expense while executives gain wealth.
This is one of the factors related to a surge in recent income inequality in the U.S.

 

[Zaphod]

Difference here is you can't offshore school bus drivers. They can keep trying to pay them less and less, the only thing they will end up with is a minimum wage bus drivers that really have no business driving a bicycle, much less a bus load of children.

 

[Renaissance Man]

OP tries too hard.

And he is not funny.

Double threat !