I cannot claim to be neutral about CUSD 300's
decision last night to gut the jobs of 150 dedicated bus drivers. I am an admitted partisan in this sad affair. To watch the school board members in attendance take turns calling the union leadership 'professional', and 'dedicated to the kids', and then vote 5-2 to fire them all is something I'll not soon forget.
It must be hard to work every day for six years to prove your worth to your employer, only to have them give you the backhand in such a public way. I cannot imagine anything else the union might have done differently to
change the outcome for its members. They consistently took the high
road in their dealings with their bosses, they showed an amazing
commitment to their members and the community, and they acted like class acts all year through this fight.
District 300 could not have asked for a group of employees more committed to building a system of transportation that meets the needs of all students. The union's only demands were that they be treated fairly, and managed with some degree of competence.
The funny thing was that the Superintendent admitted in open session that top administrators didn't have the capacity for competent management of transportation, which is why they just had to subcontract everyone. Again and again district officials complained about time spent addressing transportation concerns while ignoring other issues.
In one sentence, that's what all employers hate about having to deal with unions: when they want to get rid of you, they want to get rid of you and move on. They're the bosses, and they know best, end of story. Actually having to listen to you as some kind of equal or something, well, that's just too time-consuming. Listening to the union's concerns and working toward some kind of common goal was clearly never on District 300's radar screen.
At least one of the members of the board had the decency to say the
obvious: the district's transportation problems are not the fault of
the drivers, and by getting rid of them all, the district is washing
its hands of a problem that management created over the years.
The district should be ashamed of itself for jettisoning the only part of its transportation department with any expertise in the area of delivering children to school in a safe and timely fashion.
But somehow I doubt that shame is the emotion gripping district officials and school board members today. They're probably just glad to be rid of the 'problem' of employees who are organized, who know what they're talking about, and who have a vision for how things ought to work.
Stories like this one are what has prompted the
IEA to sponsor legislation (
HB 1347) that would force districts to honor collective bargaining agreements with their employees and not subcontract while a union contract is in place, force subcontractors to pay comparable benefits packages, require contractors to live up to their cost promises to school districts, and place other common-sense constraints on this process. Subcontracting is not a 'Dundee' issue, or a 'bus driver' issue. It is a union issue, and and a problem of common concern to all education employees who value public service for the public good, rather than profit-based business motives in the public school system.
Finally, I can safely say that the IEA is committed to helping these employees find whatever employment we can, and we are investigating our options of organizing them in the private sector. This story is not over, not by a longshot.