There has been a lot of opinions in the paper about the school bus drivers wanting a union. All the opinions I’ve seen seem to be negative. I would like to say I’m in favor of them having a union and I hope they get one. Most of the drivers are part time employees. They have a morning run to pick up students at their homes and an afternoon run to return them back home, which is about four hours per day. None of them are getting rich on the taxpayer’s dime. I worked for a school system in New York that was unionized. The union leaders negotiated with the administration for 3 year contracts for all support staff. The people who worked for the school were members of the community. The school did not outsource any jobs to bus, food service, maintenance and cleaning companies. The union contracted for benefits like health insurance, vacation days, sick days, pay, etc. It worked out well for both the administration and the employees. We did not work for the union as stated by Bobby, (Speak Out 9-17), we worked for the school and the union worked to get the benefits we deserved. Many people wrongly believe that if you have a union, you can be a slacker, can get away with not performing your duties, etc. The union will not support any person who tries to play the system, does not do his job, or is found to be insubordinate. We did three year contracts so we knew what benefits we had and what pay raises we’d get for those three years. We also did not have to negotiate every year which was good for both sides. The pay was based on years of service so new hires got a lesser amount than folks that were there for a longer time. I realize that there are folks out there complaining that the tax payers have to pay for all of this, but employees of the school are tax payers also. I’d also like to say that driving a school bus is no picnic. You not only have to drive the bus safely, but you also have to control 20 to 30 students on that bus. Most of the students are good people but it takes one disruptive student to make it tough on that driver. It’s pretty difficult to drive the bus safely and handle an out of control student. I think there should be an aide on all the buses to take care of these students. If that cannot be done at least have a camera on the buses so that these disruptive students can be identified and properly punished for their behavior. Our children are in the hands of someone working for the school a minimum of eight and a half hours per day. They are on the bus in the morning a minimum of a half hour, in classes and lunch about 7 and a half hours and ride the bus home another half hour or better. Our school personnel are responsible to take good care of our children for most of the day and they do a pretty good job of it. I think they all deserve a decent wage and the respect of the community they serve.
Helen Thompson
Milton
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: School personnel should have union