1181's Press Releases

[Buzz]

If you haven't seen these in the papers, here are 2 press releases from 1181 about the "strike."



For Immediate Release

November 18, 2011

Statement from ATU Local 1181 President Michael Cordiello

Although Mayor Bloomberg's failure to put the safety of New York City children first makes a strike likely, there are no immediate plans for one. The issue here is getting children to school safely and securely. All the Mayor has done is create more chaos, instability, and concern among parents about NYC school buses, which have already been poorly managed for years.

The crucial provisions the Mayor has suddenly eliminated not only ensure a stable, experienced workforce – they protect the hundreds of thousands of city children who get to school every day in the hands of that workforce. The casting away of experienced, well-trained employees in favor of companies who are simply seeking to provide bare-bones service at the lowest possible cost is a risky, ill-conceived public policy that directly threatens the safety and security of our children. If we want a frightening example of this, we should look no further than the Bronx casino bus accident that killed 15 last March.  Deregulation of the intercity bus industry has turned intercity buses into sweatshops on wheels, where lack of driver training and employment standards have caused a spike in fatal crashes across the country.

The last thing we need is to bring that level of risk to the buses New York City parents depend on to get their children to school safe and sound.

Furthermore after spending three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees standing by our side and defending employment protections for school bus drivers, the Mayor has inexplicably and duplicitously flip-flopped on decades-old city policy. When it comes to school children the Mayor should be more concerned about safety not just cutting costs.





For Immediate Release
November 21, 2011

Statement from ATU Local 1181 President Michael Cordiello

For the past 32 years the top priority of NYC school bus drivers, matrons, and mechanics has been protecting New York City's most precious cargo – our school children.

Today we have reopened our collective bargaining agreement with the companies performing General and Special Education school bus transportation work to negotiate new terms and conditions of employment of workers employed by those companies.  This is our right under our current contract with those employers.

We do not want to strike, but we have been forced to keep our options open by cost cutting proposals by Mayor Bloomberg that would jeopardize the safety of school children.

Despite erroneous reports, if and when job action is taken by NYC school bus drivers, matrons, and mechanics it will be in accordance with the law. Our number one priority has always been and remains getting NYC children to and from school safely and securely.

Our goal is to fight to protect workers' rights and to ensure that our children are transported by experienced, well-trained bus drivers and matrons every day.

Mayor Bloomberg is wrong to allege that any potential job action has any other purpose. His flip-flop on the city's support of this policy for many years and after hundreds of thousands of tax dollars is just another one of his attacks on hard-working people of New York City.

[mirrorcheck]

I think these releases in my opinion are clear and concise. Too add on why this should be an issue is that as mentioned safety is an issue a child was killed last year.The unthinkable happened because of a choice in making a cut.In comparison There are  soo many items that can go into the tens, even hundreds of millions of Waste in this  city budget for  this year alone . Offhand there are 2 items that cost over 70 million and 1 other that was wasted overruns into at least 30 million blowing a 100 million dollar hole in the budget. These items arent even entitlement programs or help the destitute. These were utopian prok items ....... lets do it,because we can,simply no other reason or profit to even be made in the future. I am glad that we arent being made into his doormat.Let the Mayor go examine,cut and manage the waste and mispent money in other areas.