They lost their leadership!
"School bus drivers union members rally to reinstate fired leaders" by Gal Tziperman Lotan | Globe Correspondent, November 10, 2013
After four leaders in the union representing Boston’s school bus drivers were fired this month, more than 200 people gathered Saturday in front of a bus yard in Dorchester to call for their reinstatement and for an end to what they called union-busting practices.
They should have been fired from what I read!
Stevan Kirschbaum, Steve Gillis, Andre Francois, and Garry Murchison were fired for what the company said was the organization of an illegal strike on Oct. 8, when most buses never drove off their lots and many of the 30,000 students who take school buses each morning were left without transportation.
Oh, it's Stevan the troublemaker, not Steve!
The leaders of United Steelworkers of America Local 8751 said they would have been willing to work that day had Veolia Corp., which has managed Boston’s school buses since July, agreed to a meeting with them to discuss working conditions and their existing contract.
On Saturday, they insisted again that Veolia officials had locked them out of the yards.
“We’re just sick and tired of taking their junk, and the city won’t step in,” said Robert Traynham, who has been driving a Boston school bus since 1978. “But we’re gonna fight them . . . We want all four employees back.”
The workers said they planned to meet Thursday at the Boston Teachers Union Hall to further discuss and vote on the issues.
Though the Dorchester crowd was large Saturday, not all of the union’s members support the group — the local’s president, Dumond Louis, has in the past said the workers were part of an illegal strike.
Veolia spokeswoman Valerie Michael confirmed that four employees were fired because they “had led and instigated this illegal walkout.”
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A group of about 30 union workers and parent activists came to the protest from New York City, and other labor activists from as far as Baltimore and Seattle spoke to the crowd....
Had this been a protest the paper of corporate liberalism did not approve they would have said those people were bused in (pun intended), blah, blah, blah.
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They have the NERVE to complain about "economic rights(?)" when they are paid quite well with good benefits?
Related:
Unions need to retire tired tropes
Back on the Boston Globe School Bus
Sunday Globe Special: Brockton School Bus Strike
Also see: Protect the right to protest
I'm so glad he is sticking up for Occupy and antiwar protesters.
