Vol. 77/No. 13      April 8, 2013

The bus companies announced March 22 that they are eliminating two weeks of paid spring and Christmas vacation and that starting April 15 they will impose a 7.5 percent wage cut and require workers to pay more for health insurance. Some companies have announced layoffs.

Neither Jeffrey Pollack, an attorney for the bus companies, nor Atlantic Express, one of the largest bus companies, returned calls for comment.

“It’s like someone threw cold water on us,” Carmen Valdez, a bus attendant at Atlantic Express, said by phone March 23. “Our spring vacation starts on Monday, and what a surprise, they gave us one check instead of the usual two. You can imagine! After more than four weeks on strike and people still behind on their bills.”

Local 1181 members went on strike Jan. 16 after city officials and the bus company owners claimed Employee Protection Provisions in place for more than 34 years were now “illegal.” Under the provisions, private companies, which the city hires to transport students, were required to hire laid-off workers by seniority and at their previous wages, before hiring off the street.

Local 1181 members staffed spirited picket lines during the strike and won sympathy from workers throughout the city. But more than 3,000 members of Teamsters Local 854, United Craft and Industrial Workers Union Local 91 and United Service Workers Union Local 355 crossed the picket lines, weakening the strike.

Amalgamated Transit Union officials announced the end of the strike Feb. 15, pointing to promises from Democratic Party contenders in the November mayoral election to “revisit” the union’s concerns.

The bosses “said ‘you’ll survive, you guys will still have a job’” in response to the coming pay cuts, said Noemia Topete, a bus attendant at Logan Transportation. “Then the next day there’s a letter attached to the bottom of our checks saying we were being laid off permanently in June. All 57 of us gone.”

Local 1181 officials have filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board against 60 bus companies for bargaining in bad faith and asking for an injunction against the wage and benefit cuts.
 
 
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