Mary's (dispatcher) father passed away. The wake will be at Matthew Funeral Home Thursday and Friday. More info in obit link below.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Mary and her family. Condolences to all.

http://obits.silive.com/obituaries/siadvance/obituary.aspx?n=john-j-ruggirello&pid=147947072

This topic has been moved to Work Related.

http://1181drivers.com/smf/index.php?topic=42.0

Just called our delegate to verify an assumption on my part, but it's absolutely true ... Not one single person called the union to complain about the raise they got in this week's check!

True to form, the mayor says schools are open. 

Bobby had a list of schools that notified him they're closed tomorrow ... I know OLQP and NDCA were on there. If you already know FOR SURE your school is closed, post it here.

So far I've heard predictions of snow for Tuesday night ranging from 4 inches to 12 inches. Do I hear 15? 

Normally, I'd say no way is Bloomy going to close schools. But knowing that he doesn't want another fiasco, and only because school traffic could hamper clean-up operations, I wouldn't be surprised if he closed them if predictions lean towards the higher end of estimates.   

An avatar is a little picture that appears under your name on the forum. There are 2 ways you can get an avatar.

Either way, do this first: Click on Profile >> Modify Profile >> Forum Profile

First Way: Choose from gallery
Two galleries came with the message board, Actors and Musicians. I just added Sports Teams. Make requests for avatars to be added to these categories in a reply to this message and I'll add them as long as I can find them. I don't intend to add more categories ... the pictures in the gallery are on this website's server and take up space so I want to keep it minimal. (Plus they have to be added one-by-one ... very time consuming.)

If you have a picture of your own that you want to use, send it to me and I'll crop it, if necessary, resize it and upload it for you.

Second Way: Specify URL
If you find a picture on the web that you want to use, all you have to do is enter the address a.k.a. location a.k.a. URL.

If you're using Firefox, right-click on the picture and select View Image Info. Copy the "Location" and paste it into your profile.
If you're using IE, right-click and select Properties. Copy the "Address" and paste it into your profile.

For best results, the pictures you choose should be square ... same width and height ... because they will be resized to 60 x 60 pixels automatically when they appear here. Also, please, don't use animations ... they can be distracting to readers.


Here's a good site to use with the "Second Way" ...
http://www.avatarsplus.com/main.php


Have Fun!

One of our members sent this to me ... ya' gotta see it!

I didn't like the default smileys that came with the message board so I installed some from the old message board and some new ones. Besides the ones you see above, you can click on "[more]" right below them and see more to choose from. If you hover over them a second a one-word description as to what they represent will come up.

Christmas isn't over yet, folks. Here, free for the asking, are several items that I'm sure some Pioneer S.I. 1181 members can't live without!
.


1) Hand crocheted mailboxes and houses ... made by my neighbor, Crazy Marcia. What the hell you're going to do with them, I have no idea. But hey, you're welcome to them! Houses are about 4" long, mailboxes about 2 1/2" long.





2) Silver-plated demitasse set. There are cracks in the glaze on one of the ceramic cups, but at this price, you're going to be fussy?





3) Vintage Infant of Prague Ceramic Planter - There's got to be somebody out there who asked Santa for one of these and didn't get it. And it's a "Ruben's Original!" He's about 11" tall, but with lots of water, he might grow. (Believe this dates back to about the 1940s.)




Just e-mail, PM or see me if you want any of the above. (For Pioneer S.I. 1181 members only.) They're FREE with FREE DELIVERY, to boot! Who needs the Home Shopping Network when you have Buzz's "Things-that-don't-sell-on-eBay" right here on 1181drivers.com!

The Second Court of Appeals seems to be rushing along the case of the busing of 7th and 8th graders. Doubt there will be any decision before March anyway, and wouldn't be surprised if it didn't come until after school's out. I think it's all for show, and that in the end, they're going to side with the city. Bloomy gets what Bloomy wants. Never has been about the money.



http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/court_puts_city_on_a_short_lea.html

If you didn't happen to notice, the schedule and location of the Spring Refresher has changed. It apparently is in reverse seniority order ... somewhat. They're all next week at the Kreischer St. K of C. I didn't copy the schedule so be sure to check the notices posted around the drivers room.

Some of our members, particularly the anti-incumbents factions, seem to be suffering undue consternation over the "Most Favored Nation" clause in our contract. Essentially, all this clause does is prevent 1181 from organizing a bus company contracted with the DoE by agreeing to lesser pay or benefits than other 1181, DoE-contracted companies currently have.

How this prevents the union from doing so is thus: If the union were to enter into such an agreement they would have to let other contractors renegotiate their contracts with the union to the terms that are more favorable to themselves. The union would never do this, for obvious reasons, but the contractors wanted that clause in there for reassurance.

Why, you ask? You have to realize that outside of NYC, 1181 contracts with individual school districts and each one may have different rates of pay and benefits, and few, if any, fare as well as we do. Contractors here just wanted to make sure that the same would not be done with other companies who contract with the DoE. That's all.

It's as simple as that. There is nothing sinister or diabolical about it. It has nothing to do with bids, and it does not rewrite the Mollen agreement. It does protect the contractors, but not without first protecting us.

If you have heard explanations other than this, it is for one of two reasons: (1) The person talking to you does not understand what the clause means, or (2) that person was intentionally trying to deceive you to suit their own agenda.

I can see from the Error Log that some of you are having trouble logging in.  Remember, your password is case sensitive. The user name isn't, but if there is a space between a two-part name, make sure you log in with the space. Keep trying ... I've upped the login threshold to 10 attempts. If you can't log in after 10 tries, e-mail me for help. You've got to be doing something wrong.

OK, kiddies, last day of vacation ... don't forget to claim unemployment.

(If you had to open a new book I hope you did it last week!)

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For Sale: Domain name pioneerdrivers.com. $1,000 ... negotiable.

Inquire within. 

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