My question is this...our current school district contract is up for bid and there is a REAL GOOD chance that our company is going to lose the bid. We are also in the middle of voting on a union and putting that in place. Do any of you have experience, where you were working for a company as a union and then the contract goes to another company...were you taken on even though you were a union shop? Historically in our area, when a new company wins the contract, they ALWAYS take the current drivers. Many of our drivers are concerned that the "new company" may not want a union and therefore we will all be out of work. I am wondering if anyone has been in this situation and could give me some information on what happened in your case. Thank you.....
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Shelley Goodman Union
Shelley Goodman Union Driver/Organizer
Yes, April 2006 in Waterloo, IL where we worked for Laidlaw (prior to the First Student buyout), myself along with 43 others were bus drivers. We had organized our union when we worked for Mayflower in 1992 and rolled along very smoothly, always going to the table to renegotiate at the end of the contracts. In April of that year, Durham came to our small town and underbid Laidlaw by $500,000. We knew the first place they would cut would be drivers salaries.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)sent an organizer in to help my Local # 50 and the bus workers stay united. We had already been told we would all lose our jobs, which would mean we would have no representation with Durham.
The 44 drivers stood strong and unified. Two weeks after Durham was awarded the low bid (IL is a low bid state and the school board sold us down the river saying we had not found enough justification to not accept the lowest bid by Durham)the newly awarded private contractor called our Teamster Local in Belleville, IL and asked when they could sit down to the table and negotiate a contract with the drivers. We were very proud that we stood together and helped force a very anti union company to accept us. It proves their is strength in numbers! We were only the 2nd group to have a Teamster and Durham contract in the nation when this all took place.
Successor language is now put into contracts to help in cases of buyouts and hopefully one of these days, school districts around the country will add language in the Bid Specifications to contractors that whoever bids the contract will accept their workers, their seniority and honor their collective bargaining agreement.
ORGANIZE ORGANIZE ORGANIZE it is the only thing that saved us from the dooms of destruction when the other private contractor was coming to our small town to take the bid. And these companies do so at a much lower cost by cutting the workers salaries and benefits. BUT when you are under a collective bargaining agreement you lose nothing, the only thing that changes are the names on the side of the buses!
Thank you so much for that
Thank you so much for that info. I printed your reply and brought it to work. It eased the mind of several of my co-workers who are scared that if we go union and the contract goes to another bus company, we will be out of a job! Any more input would be MUCH appreciated!!
Shelley Goodman Union
Shelley Goodman Union Driver/Organizer
I am glad this information was helpful. I know how frightening it can be, the not knowing what will happen in the future. But believe me, this year at the Durham location I left over 3 years ago on Union Business Leave to help organize others in the school bus industry, my friends there found out the importance of having the Teamsters contract. At their kickoff meeting in August, the district mgr told the workers that if they had been in a non-union location, their wages and bonuses would have been frozen. But since they work under a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) the company had to honor it.
It made me reflect back on when we organized in 1992. It made me appreciate the Teamster contract even that much more. To think that so many years ago, we had the foresight to become union drivers, it was a great feeling!
Today the workers at my old location are seeining their increases each year it has only gotten better. Back in 92, we worked for our paychecks and that was all we received from the company. Today the workers are receiving 7 paid holidays, along with higher wages, weather days, double pay for double routes, the right to negotiate, a grievance process just to name some of what the contract did for us.
I commend you for organizing and believe this is the only way to make these private company's give us a little bit bigger piece of their pie!
If you should have any types of questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me. In the three years that I have been helping to organize other bus workers like myself, I tell workers when I go to a new location; the issues are usually about the same, the only thing that changes are the workers faces. Stand up for yourselves and realize this is a movement to drive up the standards in our industry and it is working!
In Jacksonville, under a
In Jacksonville, under a collective bargaining agreement that First Student had with Teamsters, when Durham took over, the attendants actually received lower pay. It was too bad that the pay raise that the Teamsters got for the First Student Drivers had to come from the First Student attendants. I think this was very poor bargaining done by the Union with Durham and that some of these attendants now receive up to almost $3.oo less and hour. We are trying to get organized, and if the Teamsters cannot re-negotiate the contract, instead of just taking the dues from these same attendants that are getting lower wages that maybe the Union was not such a good idea to keep when Durham took over in Florida. Did I mention that the Drivers who received pay raises also gets first bid on all runs, and field trips, ect. Some are now driving new cars. Yipee! While some employees only receive four hours a day at $7.40 an hour. (Can you feed your family on this?) Durham attendants would like to thank the Union for what a great job they did bargaining for them...When employees ask for a grievance form from one of the lot stewards, their told to go down to Union Hall to get one. Thanks again Union....but I can't afford the gas for that and pay you too.