Sept5rally
9/7/23 NEW Content below = press release, photos taken by parents, and other coverage links (in progress)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK, NY 09/06/2023
School Bus Parents and Supporters Demand that the Mayor and NYC Public Schools Resolve the Overdue Labor Contract Dispute in Favor of the Students
Photo of 10 people, mainly women, of many complexions standing with raise fists and smiling. One member of the group holds a sign calling for Better Pay and Employee Protection Provisions to Retain School Bus Drivers - PIST NYC. Behind them is a doorway and a window at the lower level of the NYC public schools administration building
Parent organizers are ready to fight for better busing, strike or no strike. Photo: Lizette Colon
On Tuesday, September 5, several families of school bus riders rallied outside the NYC Public Schools headquarters to insist that the City bring about a generous labor contract for the workers who transport their children, so that a strike can be averted—and also to improve contingency plans in case one is provoked. The diverse group of mothers, and a few fathers, was joined by community and labor activists, and the Office of the New York Public Advocate.
First on the agenda was a moment of silence for Fajr Williams, whose New Jersey family is grieving her death after an unsafe school bus ride. A Manhattan school bus mom expressed condolences from the group, saying, “We need safe, stable bus service with adequate training, proper wheelchair harnesses, and workers who understand their job description. Due to unattractive wages, school bus service suffers from worker turnover, attrition and loss of institutional knowledge.”
Parents to Improve School Transportation (PIST NYC) co-Founder, Sara Catalinotto, challenged City leaders to use their leverage toward a contract to reverse staff shortages. “Passively sitting out these negotiations when you have the power to step in, means actively enabling the destruction of the school bus service that thousands of our kids depend on to get their education.” Catalinotto referenced rulings from the National Labor Relations Board “naming the NYCDOE as a primary employer of school bus workers, along with the company owners” at the time of the last strike in 2013.
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane C. Williams demanded “a fair contract for bus drivers, and for the rights of students—including those with disabilities and in temporary housing—to be protected.” He noted that, “Whenever profit is the top priority, people suffer, and that's what will happen here.” https://twitter.com/nycpa/status/1699227815655154048
The parent petition titled “Demand the Mayor and Department of Education Meet Their Responsibility to Transport our NYC Students to School’ was read in English by Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, Manhattan Borough President appointee to the Panel for Education Policy and in Spanish by Bronx mother of three and advocate Milagros Cancel. Cancel said compensating school bus drivers and attendants properly for their service will help stop the staff shortage and decrease violations of transportation mandates.https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/1a6ba14d6a3bd07741a0a8e44795d34ceeb60947
Paullette Healy, Brooklyn mother and elected member of the Citywide Council for District 75 shamed the DOE leadership for recycling old contingency plans from 2013. “That metrocard and car service did not work. My son, then in Kindergarten, missed 30 sessions of Speech Therapy which were never recovered.” Healy went on to read an Education Council Consortium statement in support of the parent petition and the workers’ right to a living wage.
Special educator Gloria Brandman of Retiree Advocate/UFT caucus listed the busing hassles that school staff contend with even when there is no strike. Brandman was cheered when she appealed to the rest of the teachers’ union to “join the picket lines in solidarity with ATU Local 1181 if there is a strike.”
School bus mom Flora Ichiou Huang recalled the hardship that Foster students endured in the 2013 strike. Huang’s firm, Stronger Families and Communities, works with families with foster care and other types of child welfare involvement. She commented, “No family should be charged with educational neglect when the pupil transportation system fails to get their student to school – especially in a strike situation – but it has happened.”
Unable to attend due to the needs of her three children, Bronx parent leader Rima Izquierdo stated via text: “Allowing the companies that the Education budget pays - with billions of our money - to bully and provoke the workers into striking back, contradicts the mandate to get all students to the schoolhouse door.”
Izquierdo added, “Fair compensation for school bus staff is the minimum that we want. If parents were in these negotiations, we would be calling for air conditioned buses long before 2035, and recruitment in marginalized communities.” Her children rely on yellow bus service; she recently led a team to measure hot temperatures inside the vehicles. https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2023/8/3/23818044/nyc-school-bus-heat-wave-air-conditioning-iep-disabilities
Queens mom and elected member of the Citywide Council on Special Education Heather Dailey shared that much of her role in that council has been elevating busing problems which were not resolved at the OPT call center, collecting data on school bus parents’ struggles, and trying to connect families with access to online bus route information. Dailey said parents can visit tinyurl.com/ineednycsa ( to seek help with codes for the NYC Student Account.
Rally organizers repeated the September 1st communique to parents from ATU 1181-1061 President Tomás Fret, which promised that “there will be busing in the first week of school” while the union continues negotiations, but emphasized that “time is running out.” PIST then announced its next activity: a school bus parent/worker unity contingent at the Labor Parade up Fifth Avenue on Saturday, September 9th. https://www.pistnyc.org/events/laborparade2023
Also present to support school bus riders and workers were individual members of Community Boards and Community Education Councils in various neighborhoods, and of the Center for Independence of the Disabled of New York (CID-NY). School bus father and grandfather Johnnie Stevens of PIST NYC operated the sound system; school bus mom Claudia Chavez and Medicare activist Lizette Colon both took photos. Media presence included ABC, CBS, Fox News, News 12, NY 1, Telemundo 47, Politico, NY Times.
CONTACT: Parents to Improve School Transportation pistnyc@gmail.com
More information: https://www.pistnyc.org/resources/strike
Hashtags: #WheresMyBus #FairContract1181
About the organizers:
PIST NYC is a citywide volunteer group who demand school transportation that is safe, reliable and renewable – for students with and without disabilities, including those in temporary housing or in the foster system. PIST NYC offers free advice on day-to-day school bus route complaints, while organizing for a School Bus Bill of Rights ballot referendum.
Media coverage of Sept 5 Rally
Telemundo 47
CBS
NY 1
Fox, morning of Sept 6
https://www.fox5ny.com/video/1275160
Our critique of New York Times biased coverage:
Photos from the rally
First photo credit: Lizette Colon All other photos credit: Claudia Chavez Brief video of chanting at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymhRNrtlmJY
español a continuación
Demand the Mayor and Department of Education Meet Their Responsibility to Transport our NYC Students to School
Rally & Press Conference
Tuesday September 5th at 11:30 a.m.
at the NYC Public Schools headquarters
Tweed, 52 Chambers St., Manhattan 10007
Background: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/1a6ba14d6a3bd07741a0a8e44795d34ceeb60947
- CHILDREN are welcome - ALLIES WHO DO NOT USE THE SCHOOL BUS are welcome -
- ALL ARE WELCOME to support RESPECT for School Bus Riders and Workers! -
RSVP through the social media links below the Map & Directions.
We have tasks for volunteers before and during the event.
español
〰️
español 〰️
Rally 5 de Septiembre
Exija que el Alcalde y el Departamento de Educación cumplan con su responsabilidad de transportar a nuestros estudiantes de la Ciudad de Nueva York a la escuela
Manifestación y Conferencia de Prensa
Martes, 5 de Septiembre a las 11:30 a.m.
en la sede de las Escuelas Públicas de la Ciudad de Nueva York
Tweed, 52 Chambers St., Manhattan 10007
Información Antecedente: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/1a6ba14d6a3bd07741a0a8e44795d34ceeb60947
(traduc pendiente)
Tenemos tareas para voluntarios antes y durante el evento.
- NIÑOS son bienvenidos - ALIADOS QUE NO UTILIZAN EL AUTOBÚS ESCOLAR son bienvenidos -
- ¡TODOS SON BIENVENIDOS a apoyar el RESPETO para los Usuarios y Trabajadores de Autobuses Escolares! -
52 Chambers Street is east of Broadway and west of Park Row (Centre St on the other side).
Accessible transit to and from this location:
CITY BUS
Chambers St & Broadway bus stop on eastbound AND westbound M22
Centre St & Chambers St bus stop on southbound M55 down Centre St
More buses can be found at https://new.mta.info/map/5391
SUBWAY
According to https://new.mta.info/map/5346 there are elevators at
Chambers St J•Z station and Brooklyn Bridge 4, 5, 6 station, exit and keep moving in the opposite direction of the Brooklyn Bridge
Chambers St 1•2•3 station is far so transfer to the M22 eastbound.