April 29, 2014
New York, NY – Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1181 President Michael Cordiello released the following statement this afternoon upon news that the Department of Education would be postponing the bids for the 2015 school busing contracts from May to August 1, 2014:
“Today’s news that the Department of Education will postpone the 2015 school bus contract bids from next month to August 1 gives Mayor de Blasio and his administration more time to really see the disastrous effects of a workforce without Employee Protection Provisions (EPPs). Since the Bloomberg Administration stripped EPPs out of the special education contracts causing the 2013 strike, the entire industry has been thrown into chaos: inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of children and families, costing the city tens of millions of dollars excluding police overtime, driving multiple companies into bankruptcy and causing thousands of drivers and matrons to lose their jobs and be forced onto food stamps.
“We are committed to working with Mayor de Blasio to ensure that our city’s school children have the safest, most experienced workforce available and hope that he takes a hard look at these consequences and not only ensures that these 2015 bids will include EPPs, but also stops the implementation of the 2014 EPP-free bids scheduled to take effect in June that will cause even further disruptions in our city’s school bus workforce and cost thousands of hard-working New Yorkers their jobs.”
