New York, NY – ATU Local 1181 represents 8,000 school bus drivers, matrons and mechanics, who transport and care for 150,000 New York City’s children each day.
These professional school bus workers take a great deal of pride and ownership in transporting children to and from school in New York City. The daily stress of this critically important job, low pay, and limited job security, results in a continual shortage of drivers and support staff.
There is a long-running dispute over job security for school bus drivers and matrons. The disagreement intensified when New York City removed the legislation that provided worker protections known as Employee Protection Provision (EPP). Maintaining qualified experienced drivers is critical to these bus operations and that requires the re-establishment of the EPP.
Building an experienced, devoted and trained staff that are familiar with city neighborhoods and the complexity of the job, requires personnel that want to stay on-the-job. Our children depend on the members of ATU Local 1181 and these workers need to be treated no different from others in the school system.
Most important is the retaining of seasoned profession drivers and matrons. This requires a system that includes job security and adequate compensation. The largest city in the world where hundreds of thousands of children are transported to schools within an extensive five borough network must have a system that retains the most qualified experienced personnel. The safety of 150,000 children and efficiency of a vast transportation network, requires careful screening of applicants and retaining highly skilled professions. In order to ensure a stable quality workforce, employees need to be provided seniority rights, and the continuation of adequate wages and benefits.
The removal of the EPP has led to a loss of wages and benefits for experienced drivers. Through the years, many reports and studies cite the
job security and low pay as the reason for the current and continuous school bus driver shortage. With hundreds of driver and matron positions regularly unfilled as well as a constant turn-over of personnel – stability within the network continues to be affected.
The job is difficult and includes huge responsibilities. You have to be a special person to work with children on a bus every day, particularly those with special needs. The routes are complex requiring competent staff. Often, it can take two hours or more for children on the bus to return home.
With a job that requires sensitivity to children and knowledge of bus routes, we must provide incentives and support for experienced school bus drivers and matrons to stay on the job.
