e broke the news a couple weeks ago that Huntsville City School bus drivers are unionizing with the Teamsters; their organizing comes after a vote among the drivers that led to a blowout of 131 yes to 6 no. While the fact that they are unionizing is important in itself, it’s just as important to look at the road that led them to this point.
So why did the bus drivers unionize?
Jacob Morrison took a few moments to answer this question in last week’s broadcast. “We’ve been able to talk to some of the… school bus drivers, and the Teamsters business agent, Joe Groenig, in the last week or so about the win,” Jacob said on Saturday’s show. “And they’ve been able to shed some light on how that happened.”
Jacob went on to explain that our local bus drivers felt they were not being paid their worth, getting paid $20 an hour for about 30 hours on average a week. The drivers were able to determine that their wages were below market value by assessing bus driver wages in neighboring locations.
“Other school bus drivers’ salaries are public, because other school bus drivers are public employees,” Jacob continued. “In Huntsville they’ve contracted this service out, but other cities haven’t done that. And so they can look just a little bit outside of Huntsville city school limits and they can see that the Madison City School bus drivers my $23 an hour. A full $3 an hour more than Huntsville City School bus drivers.”
In addition to a salary beneath current market values, HCS bus drivers also do not receive benefits for their work, including healthcare and retirement.
In comparison, Adam Keller took a moment to look at the difference with Madison City School bus drivers. “[In] Madison City, [the bus drivers] are public school employees, so they have access to the retirement system of Alabama, that’s a defined benefit pension; they have access to healthcare through the Public Education Employees Insurance Program; and they have the due process rights that come with the Students First Act. There’s a lot there that’s missing when you are contracted out.”
And these are only a selection of the reasons behind the decision to organize. For a full explanation on why the school bus drivers organized, watch the full video on YouTube: