Blog: Dermot Cole
Fairbanks school bus drivers face Teamster affiliation vote this week
Published Monday, April 20, 2009
The school bus drivers, mechanics and attendants are voting this week on whether to join the Teamsters Union, Local 959. The vote is set for Thursday in Moose Creek and Friday in Fairbanks.
The school district has two years left on a five-year contract with First Student, which is the leading school bus company in the U.S. and Canada. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup of England.
The contract is worth about $9.5 million a year.
The British company bought Laidlaw in 2007 and provides services to about 1,500 school districts. First Student's American operations are based in Cincinnati.
The company also owns First Transit, which provides transit management and contracting services; First Services, which is a maintenance firm; and Greyhound.
The Teamsters are organizing school bus drivers in many parts of the country and have a Web site, www.driveupstandards.org, about what is going on.
"Our employer, First Student, is a global company that is more than making ends meet, while we struggle to do the same for our families. As school bus drivers, attendants and mechanics, we are concerned with standards in the school bus industry and are working hard to make some needed changes," a statement on the Web site says.
In 2007, drivers in Anchorage affiliated with the Teamsters.
The Teamsters say that since 2006 more than 16,800 school bus drivers, attendants, mechanics and aides have unionized through the "Drive Up Standards" campaign.
Good for them.
The very last thing you want to do is to institutionalize some of the practices that are there now. It would be good to have something in between the company and the school district, tho, as it would help to ensure that those on both sides are doing their jobs. The idea that some of the people there would be there indefinitely if there were a union should scare the hell out of a lot of people.
?
What do you mean, "Not Henry...?"
I drove school bus in Fairbanks, for many years. I still keep in touch with some of my kids, who are now all grown up and married.
There is a problem with the current arrangement of having a private contractor bid on providing bus service. The problem is that over the several contractors that I drove for, there was always the practice to cut costs, as the contract progressed. I noticed that I had become the 2nd highest paid operator, over the years, when the contractor was Tundra Tours. I received Kudos certificates from the company, for outstanding performance. Then, I was told that I would not be hired back the next Fall, because my performance had not improved. In talking with a FNSSD official, I was told that they knew that the school bus company was getting rid of the most experienced and, therefore, highest paid operators, so they could hire newbies at a much cheaper wage.
Obviously, if it is profitable for a contractor to do it and make a profit, it would be more cost-effective in the long run for the FNSSD to go back to doing the school busing with their own buses and with their own operators. The retention of experienced operators and the higher cost of keeping them would be more than offset by not incurring the cost of training new hires, with a rapid turn-over. And, from a safety viewpoint, an experienced operator is a safer bus operator. The week after I left my route to Weller School that went up Steele Creek Road from Chena Hot Springs Road, the newbie cheapie operator put my old bus and kids in the ditch.
The way that the various bus contractors have treated their school bus operators, over the years, certainly justifies the unionization of the school bus operators.
However, I think that the real fix is for FNSSD to take back school busing, from the failed practice of out-sourcing it, for reasons of both safety and economics. Why pay a contractor to do it and make a profit, when we can do it ourselves, and not have to pay that profit.
APGA, I think the good FOR THE DRIVERS will outweigh the bad FOR THE DRIVERS. I think all workers should have the right to unionize, and if they do so, they need to take the bad with the good. I don't know what effect this will have on the Borough at large.
I agree with Terrie; I think that the School District should stop contracting the bus service--the FNSBSD should operate it's own busses.
This is deja vu, didn't we go through this in 1985?
Let's re-invent the wheel!
Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round...
You need to think of the kids, & most especially but not solely, the special ed kids, before you think of the drivers, attendants or anyone else. APGA: since I'm predisposed to think good can outweigh bad, I had to read your comment twice b4 I could put it in some kind of context. Somehow, I think it's not a compliment. Actually, I think if it remained as it is at present, the bad would outweigh the good.
I would be very surprised if every single driver & attendant did not vote for the union, altho there are some very beaten down people that work for that outfit. The thing that is most important-the only thing that is important-is the care & safety of the students. Think about it: every single morning, up to the first hour (& sometimes more) of their school day is spent not only on the bus but in the confined & structured environment of the bus. How they're treated determines in a very powerful way how they are when they get to school, how their day begins, how they're perceived by their teachers & how they're able to bring themselves to their time in the classroom. It's a powerful determinant both bc of the structure & bc of the consistency of its application. It can be a powerfully good tool to treat them decently, to allow them to travel on the bus w/o being harassed by other students or - by anyone.
It was truly, truly heartbreaking to see how some of the kids are treated. The district needs to take that operation out of the hands of any for-profit company & hold the operation to the same accountability to which we hold all school district personnel. Union good or bad? A union's not going to solve the most important thing: the care of the students. I ran into the husband of an acquaintance one day, after taking an autistic child into his classroom, & the acquaintance said, "Hey! Are you doing this now? My pal & I made SO MUCH MONEY when we had the contract to transport those special needs kids!" Altho I believe he was talking about another location, it was hideous listening to him ridicule the students they had been responsible for transporting...
My heart goes out to all the parents of special needs kids, & all kids should be given educated, mature, considerate and safe transport.
And to all the drivers & attendants: you would be completely insane to not vote for the union.
AGPA, it works in your company because your company doesn't want you and your co-workers to unionize. It works because the unions exist.
Take away the unions, and that won't work anymore.
APGA: I would like to know just when, exactly, you worked for that company (the company changed recently; the ppl didn't) and how much you know about it, specifically.
If it works in your company, I think that's excellent. That's not what's happening, in this case. Anyone from the district - better and more appropriately, the school board - who actually reads this article and the comments here and would like to talk to me about it, you can contact me thru the News-Miner.
APGA: no one should be playing political games w our children.
<<<<<What's the chance of property taxes going up a result....>>>>>>
ya', its all about YOU.
I can easily and completely say that you, Andrew Briseno (aka some attorney who lives in LA & likes to rant on the NM website for some strange reason) do not know what you are talking about here. Unreasonably increasing expenses? How smart does one have to be to realize that if a company doesn't take profits out of a service operation, it's gonna cost less to operate (altho, OMG, somebody might have to pay health insurance costs!)? Outsourcing is just garbage created to put as much as possible of the public money into private pockets.
You do not know the conditions under which those people work, but I do, & I also know what it's like for the kids. I really care about working conditions & safety, & I really care about students. I also care a lot about property taxes & wasteful governmental expenditures. Union: they'd be crazy not to vote for it, but what should really happen is for the school district to operate student transportation & for everybody to do his job & do it correctly. The only way transportation can be done w/o sacrificing the well being of the students is for the district to operate it. I was very very careful when I made my comments above. Believe me, I worked hard & well & watched out for students. What I observed & was not able to correct was specific & really awful. Briseno, you have no dog in this fight, so just shut up.
For once I agree with Henry. Without the unions all the wages would come down. I wish these drivers luck and hope that they are happy with whatever they decide.
Pat
Go for 959 drivers! A large company like the one you work for needs a union to help them do a good job.
I for one would rather have a trained, well-paid, safe driver at the controls of my child's bus
I have belonged to four unions in my life and never saw a thug parasite other than the ones I have run into at a lawyers office.
A union rep couldn't of said it better Taters....
So since our folks are not unionized they are underpaid, unsafe and untrained per your logic....
and then once they join the union...poof!
they are trained, well-paid and safe!!!!!!!
awesome!
Wow, Andrew Briseno finally said something without interjecting his usual propaganda.
Will the union make them install seat belts for the kids???
Will the union make them train the drivers & attendants so the company isn't able to carte blanche bs the district re the drivers/attendants and the care of the kids?
Remember the guy who was recently arrested for child sexual abuse and who worked for the bus company for yrs? Think there were no signs of that? I spotted one amazingly huge & obvious red flag - right out in front of every single person in the place, there - & talked to mgmt about it & was told "Oh, they don't mean anything by it." That 'they' should worry all you folks. And those words from mgmt mean, in practicality, shut up or we'll fire you, of which I could give you at least one other specific example. The district should take over transportation - but they need to do some housekeeping, too - just because district hr and transportation is snowed doesn't mean they're doing their jobs. And as I said before, the drivers, mechanics (definitely; they do an amazing job but it's an overwhelming job for their mgr, who should also be part of the union) and attendants would be crazy to not vote for the union. Some of the ones who would vote against the union are people who are the very worst workers - seem counterintuitive? Not really, if you think it thru in terms of good old boys.
People may not realize that a huge portion of the labor force in this town have worked for that outfit - and of the more mature and balanced ones, many would also say some of the same things I have had to say. The school board should care. If you're getting a union: well, you only have yourselves to thank for that.
Any business that doesn't have a union is in line for worker abuse, it's that plain and simple. Every American worker should be part of a union. And if your union is not working for you, quit your job and find one that is non-union. Unions are the backbone of this country. Without unions, we would be just like China, abusing American workers. If there is a bridge or nuclear plant being built, who would you want to build it??? The union worker that is highly skilled, the best of the best..or Brown and Root!!!
Let's all hope that these folks make the smart move and vote to be represented by the Teamsters!
Without the government and unions, what will we do to survive ?
Autumnimprov...You are not the only one! There are others of us who met with the same resistance (many of whom are now working elsewhere) from the company and the district, and were unable to get the school district to take a serious look at the contractual and safety breaches made by the contractor.
If you can pay someone to do a job and they can profit from doing the job...You can certainly do it cheaper by doing it yourself. I am sure that most of the drivers, mechanics, etc. would be more than willing to work for the school district.
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