On Oct. 23, hundreds of Boston school bus drivers rallied at the Dorchester bus yard and at the corporate offices of Veolia Transportation in support of five fellow drivers and elected union leaders who are facing disciplinary action. Suspensions were handed down to the five following protests by hundreds of drivers against Veolia management for dozens of illegal violations of their union contract.
Having gone unchecked for months, the company had refused to address any of the 50 plus grievances raised by drivers that include consistently short paychecks and policies that illegally cut hours. For months, the company has been waging a policy of disrespect for drivers and has failed to properly recognize the union’s elected leadership. Drivers spend unpaid hours every week trying to address payroll complaints and are treated rudely.
Oct. 8 lockout
In the days leading up to Oct. 8, the situation had worsened and both the company and Boston school officials refused to address the drivers’ concerns. The union was notified that grievances filed with the federal government would be put on holding for the duration of the shutdown. One supervisor, who was non-union but one of the few who was friendly and helpful to drivers, was fired suddenly by Veolia without any cause or explanation. Management started to hand drivers “New Hire Applications,” demanding that they fill them out and sign waivers for invasive background checks. These actions prompted widespread fear of layoffs and were compounded by months of hostility and continued contract violations.
On the morning of Oct. 8, hundreds of drivers reported for work at the four bus yards throughout the city. The drivers demanded a meeting be scheduled later that day with Veolia management. When the company refused, the drivers continued to protest at the yards and demand a meeting. In an act of spontaneous protest, nearly all of the city’s buses remained parked in the yards for hours while the company refused to schedule a meeting. Within hours, the company kicked the drivers off the bus yards and locked the gates for the remainder of the day.
In a telling sign of the company’s approach, immediately prior to the lockout, City Councilor Charles Yancey offered his services to help mediate the situation. Yancey and a delegation of drivers were ordered out of Veolia offices by management and Boston police. He was later told by Boston school officials that drivers would not be allowed to work in the afternoon. The company lifted the illegal lockout the following morning and the drivers returned to work. Within days, however, five drivers and union leaders were ordered suspended with pay pending the outcome of disciplinary hearings.
The five who have been suspended—Gary Murchison, Steve Kirschbaum, Andre Francois, Steve Gillis and Rick Lynch—are alleged to have orchestrated an illegal strike that shut down the city’s school transportation system. Hundreds of hard working school bus drivers counter that they were defending their livelihoods and their families and were uniting in protected protest. Rather than communicate with the bus drivers or even community officials, the company ordered the police to kick the drivers off yards and they locked the gates.
Redbaiting from the Mayor’s office
The administration of Mayor Thomas Menino has led the charge against the union, making the racist claim that poor immigrant workers have been intimidated by two rogue left-wing activists who organized the so-called illegal wildcat strike. The drivers, mainly from Haiti and Cape Verde, are a tight group of militant union activists who have a history of united action.
Menino and the media have called for Steve Kirschbaum, a founder of the union and the chair of the Grievance Committee, and Steve Gillis, the union’s Vice-President, to be fired and thrown in jail. The three other drivers who face disciplinary action are Gary Murchison, who is a three-time president of the union, Andre Francois, the Chief Steward and Recording Secretary, and Rick Lynch, also a founding member and a current shop steward.
All five who have been suspended are beloved leaders, respected by drivers across the city for their years of service. Hundreds of drivers showed their support on Oct. 23 and waited in a cold parking lot for hours for periodic updates while the disciplinary hearings were being conducted inside nearby offices.
Media lies about GPS issue
The media has distorted the drivers’ struggle from the beginning and has continued to mischaracterize their grievances. Chiefly, it has inaccurately portrayed the installation of GPS devices inside buses as being an area of contention. News reports falsely claim that drivers simply do not want to be monitored by a mobile app called “Where’s My School Bus” which is used by parents to track buses. Drivers who spoke with Liberation News said that the GPS devices are not new and have been on buses for years.
“The problem is the way this new company is using the GPS devices to issue our paychecks. They are cutting time off our routes and drivers are not being paid for all the time they have worked,” explained Frantz Mendes, a driver out of the Readville yard and a former president of the union. Ray, a driver in the Roxbury yard, told Liberation that cuts to his paycheck was the most important issue for him and many other drivers.
Both technical issues with the company’s new payroll software and the deliberate effort to illegally cut hours have led to hundreds of drivers being regularly paid for fewer hours than they actually worked. One way the company this is done is by using GPS software to calculate paid driving time instead of using the amount of time actually driven in real life.
Veolia: billion-dollar international conglomerate
Veolia Transportation is a subsidiary of an international conglomerate and billion-dollar entity. Additional areas of work for Veolia include businesses in the water, energy, environmental services and waste management industries. Some notable work abroad includes operating segregated and racist bus lines and garbage services in the West Bank and occupied Palestine. Domestically, Veolia is privatizing water services in poor communities like St. Louis, Missouri, where local residents are waging a campaign to “Dump Veolia”.
On July 1 the company that took over the transportation contract with the Boston school department and entered into an agreement with the United Steel Workers Local 8751 and nearly 700 school bus drivers. Since then, Veolia has consistently violated the terms of the labor agreement and has failed to address any of the many concerns raised by drivers about wages, benefits and safety issues. Over 50 grievances have been filed with the National Labor Relations Board. Instead of addressing any of these violations, the company violated the contract again through the illegal lockout. Boston drivers are not alone in their struggle—Veolia has faced several labor disputes in the last two years with thousands of bus drivers in Southern California, Arizona, Florida and Finland.
Local 8751 born of struggle
The Boston school bus drivers’ union was born out of period of intense struggle in the late 1970s around racism, desegregation and access to equal and quality education for all. Since its foundation during the period of court-ordered busing, USWA Local 8751 has waged successful struggles that linked their own campaigns for better contracts and working conditions with local and international movements for social justice and equality. In recent years, Team Solidarity has linked the struggle of the Boston bus drivers with drivers in other cities like Cambridge and Brockton, where successful organizing campaigns have taken place to win recognition and better contracts.
For decades, Menino and other forces like the Boston Municipal Research Bureau have waged attacks on the bus transportation system that desegregated Boston public schools. Menino himself was involved in the city’s racist response to court-ordered busing. To this day, Boston has been listed as one of the most segregated cities in the county, and was listed at number 11 by Brown University’s “US 2010 Census Project.” The union has been one of the major forces to organize against racist rezoning and student assignment plans and years of school closures that have lead to increased segregation and decreased access to quality schools.
By attacking the union and the bus drivers, powerful forces in the city hope to seize on the opportunity presented. These same forces are part of nation-wide campaigns that seek to privatize and profit from education reform. Following decades of organizing in defense of public education, both the teachers’ unions and others like the bus drivers are identified as obstacles. Budget cuts to bus transportation are used to both limit resistance to reforms while rolling back hard fought gains for decent wages and retirement benefits.
It is in this moment that the saying “an injury to one, is an injury to all” must be lifted up as not just as words but put into action. For all progressive forces throughout the Boston area and beyond, the saying should become a call to action for solidarity. This is a point of struggle not isolated to a few hundred bus drivers, but one that directly impacts all poor and working people. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and ANSWER Boston stand with the Boston school bus drivers and offer our continual support in the struggle for justice.
