Bus Drivers Join AFSCME and Lots More

by James Parks, Oct 27, 2007

Bus drivers for First Student of Maine recently voted to form a union with AFSCME Council 93.

 For the second time in two months, employees of First Student Inc. have gained a voice on the job by choosing AFSCME to represent them.

This week, some 50 First Student bus drivers in Augusta, Maine, voted to join Council 93, according to the “Across The Nation” section on the AFSCME website. 

Says First Student driver Helen Perry:

We want to create the safest environment for the kids we drive. Now, we will have the power to improve safety standards.

Driver Larry Brann says:

We deserve fair wages and affordable health care so we can take care of our families. We’re thrilled to join other student transport workers in Maine who have won high standards in the industry with AFSCME.

Like their counterparts in Indianapolis who voted for AFSCME in August, the workers are paid low wages, have no sick or vacation days and poor health insurance benefits.

First Student, a subsidiary of United Kingdom-based FirstGroup, is the second-largest school bus operator in North America. The company recently purchased Laidlaw, one of its main U.S. competitors.   

In other news from AFSCME:

• About 90 employees of the city of Moore, Okla., members of Local 2406, won a historic first contract, which includes a 4.34 percent wage hike and a set schedule of paid holidays. Workers in five Oklahoma cities voted for AFSCME in the past year after a state court upheld a 2003 law, which requires cities of 35,000 people or more to recognize nonuniformed workers’ unions.  Of the five cities, Moore’s employees are the first to negotiate and ratify a contract.

• In Ohio, support is growing to reinstate 24 former custodial and maintenance employees at Ohio University whose jobs were eliminated this summer in a budget cutback. The workers, members of Local 1699, were let go after university officials balanced a $537,000 budget shortfall on the backs of the 17 custodial and seven “zone-maintenance” employees, who work on the main campus in Athens. After AFSCME members began picketing in early September, the laid-off workers have gained the support of student and community groups, faculty members and a local mayoral candidate.
  

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)