TWU Steps Up at Sunday March in Solidarity With Striking School Bus Drivers and Monitors

Six thousand ATU members and other union supporters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday in a show of solidarity against a union busting City administration. ATU International President Larry Hanley joined ATU Local 1181 President Mike Cordiello, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen, and many others, to blast Mayor Bloomberg and his DOE Chancellor, Dennis Walcott for refusing to renew the EPP – the Employee Protection Provisions that have guaranteed senior union members their spots as school bus drivers and monitors. The EPP, which has been in place for decades, assures union members that they will be hired by seniority by any new companies that become part of the municipal school bus system.

Hanley noted that his year-long efforts to get Bloomberg and Walcott to lift the veil of secrecy on their plans to demolish union jobs haven’t worked. Without notice to the union, the City administration plowed forward in an attempt to bust Local 1181 and torpedo the EPP, causing the union to go out on strike on January 16^th.  President Cordiello put the clash into perspective, saying, “This is not about the money [for wages], this is not about the legality [of the EPP], this is about pushing the working class down, about breaking a union that’s been strong in this city since 1965.”