The Insider: Bus driver union challenges mayor

ATU President Lawrence Hanley

The school bus drivers strike could last until Mayor Michael Bloomberg leaves office if the city continues to resist the union?s attempts to negotiate an end to the two-day-old strike, Lawrence Hanley, the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, predicted Thursday.

?It could last until the end of his term, I don?t know,? Mr. Hanley said, when asked how long the strike would last. ?Let?s see if he wakes up.?

The bus strike entered its second day Thursday as ATU Local 1181 continued to push for seniority protections that the city insists it legally cannot provide. According to the Department of Education, only 30% of the city?s bus routes are running Thursday, and more than 150,000 students, many of them with special needs, have had to find alternative modes of transportation. Attendance among that group of students has dropped by almost half.

For the first time in three decades, the city has put the drivers? contracts with private bus companies up for bid, leaving many bus operators concerned that they could lose their jobs.

In an interview with The Insider, Mr. Hanley, who heads the union?s national arm, challenged that assertion that the state?s highest court has blocked the city from including seniority protections in its contracts with the bus companies. The case, from 2011, prohibits the city from offering job protections to bus drivers who aren?t city employees, Mr. Bloomberg has said.

?The union has lost legal challenges on this issue at every level; 12 judges told them they?re wrong, that they are seeking protections that aren?t provided, incidentally, in any other school district in the nation,? Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The mayor also noted that the union had contracts with other counties outside New York City that didn?t contain the provisions being sought.

But Mr. Hanley said the city deliberately withheld evidence in that case that could have proved the employment protections would not drive up costs.

?One of the questions raised in that case was, ?Is there evidence that this has been effective and not cost money?? And the city has evidence ? but they declined to enter that into evidence,? he said, citing a KPMG report from the 1990s. ?It?s our belief there came a point in that case when they decided they wanted to lose it.?

The argument that including job protections in its contracts would drive up costs for the city was also derided by Mr. Hanley. He argued that his union?s members haven?t seen a significant wage increase compared with the rate of inflation in four years.

?The mayor is fully aware that the costs that have been driving this industry have nothing to do with the wages of those workers,? he said. ?He?s citing an almost 1,600% inflation, and the bulk of that is changes in the industry, additions of service, the fact we?re serving people who travel outside the city. There are many reasons for that, and it really has nothing to do with wage inflation.?

The New York Times reported on Thursday that New York City?s per-student cost for busing was far higher than that of any other city?s, placing the blame on the Bloomberg administration, as well as the federal government, for driving up these costs.

?The city?s interest is to get the best service that it possibly can at the lowest possible price, and that?s exactly what we?re going to do,? Mr. Bloomberg said Wednesday. ?The taxpayers of this city have never told us that they want to take any one group and say, ?I?m going to pay more taxes just to support that group.? ?

Mr. Hanley challenged the mayor to an on-air debate, on a Sunday talk show of his choosing, to determine the merit of both sides? arguments.

?If he really thinks this is nonsense, let?s go at it,? he said.

He said the mayor has refused to meet with members of the union to negotiate a settlement. Even the notoriously anti-union Rudy Giuliani would sit with their representatives to hash out conflicts, the union leader said.

He said the union was willing to entertain the notion of becoming full employees of the city. Of course, public employee unions are legally barred from striking. Mr. Hanley also said that a lawsuit filed by a coalition of bus company contractors to enjoin the union from striking was ?ridiculous? and destined to fail.

?He has in his final years as mayor become reckless at the expense of the city and its children,? Mr. Hanley said. ?It?s really an outrage.?

Source: http://feeds.crainsnewyork.com/~r/crainsnewyork/latestnews/~3/in-xg6YFH6k/

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