Boston Teachers’ Union
(180 Mt. Vernon Street, Dorchester)

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My grandmother, born on February 30, 1930, along with her two sisters and a brother, who were also born in the Dominican Republic, where their parents were unquestionably Dominican, became victims of the Parsley Massacre. Vincent had cultivated a cooperative relationship with and received financial support from the government of the Dominican President Rafael Trujillo.

My grandmother’s older brother, named CARLE GIMENESSE, had to escape with the three young girls to seek refuge in Haiti, where they spent their entire lives.

Due to the massacre, virtually the entire Haitian population on the Dominican border either perished or were compelled to flee across the border. Many lost their lives while attempting to escape to Haiti.

This is why I feel compelled to take a stand, not only to protect my people, but also to defend my homeland.

-Chantal Casimir

GoFundme

https://gofund.me/710e1025

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This is happening in the context of BPS/City issues with DESE about on-time performance.

High-level meetings between the Union and City Hall/BPS and Transdev have been non-stop this week and are ongoing. Local 8751 is fighting to defend the rights of our members and Union as BPS/City discuss their intentions for a temporary fix.

The Union is making sure that none of our members are harmed by temporary BPS route changes. We are also demanding that the COVID agreements be extended, including paid leave, wage/benefit guarantees in event of another shutdown, added 15 minutes per am & pm for safety protocols for all drivers, etc.

Negotiations have also increased the number of stand-by slots and addressed health insurance issues.
Local 8751 is making significant progress on all issues, but we have not yet reached an agreement.

As a result, Transdev has Moved the BID to Wednesday AUG 24 through Friday AUG 26.

Drivers may do their mandatory dry run at any time after their bid but prior to their first school’s actual start date.

The Union will keep you updated.
Solidarity Forever!

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Union reaches tentative contract agreement following Mayor Wu’s intervention

Download PDF Flyer

On March 31, 2022, the membership voted unanimously to reject the Company’s 4th “Last, Best and Final Offer”.  We, your Negotiating Committee, were unanimous in our recommendation to reject.  We believed that there was more progress to be made.  You sent us back to the table with a clear directive that we finish this process at City Hall, knowing that the Mayor has the authority and that the anti-union attitude and conduct of Transdev and BPS representatives were obstructing progress. 

In March, we recognized the substantial progress that we had already made, including frontloaded money in fully retroactive wages of 5.1%, the largest first-year increase in our union’s history.  This – combined with the retention and expansion of our uniquely valuable benefits, including best-in-the-region family Health Insurance with only a $5 co-pay, weekly 401K matches, Vision, Dental, Sickness & Accident/Long Term Disability, 11 Holidays, Paid cancelations, personal days, and bereavement leave, family Life Insurance, etc. – adds up to the real full-value rate for Boston drivers, which is the absolute highest in the region, double and triple other school bus drivers.  

The Union was able to force the withdrawal of over a dozen of Transdev/BPS’s most anti-worker concession demands, like strengthening the boss’s ability to fire us, attacking standby rights, and eliminating hard-won union working conditions.  Notwithstanding these gains, we needed and deserved more.  We were determined to fight to correct the historic discriminatory and cruel retirement injustices faced by us, our families and our deceased members, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

New Offer Adds Significant Retiree Opportunities and Rights, Addresses Historic Discrimination

On May 16, 2022, the Union met with Mayor Wu in her Eagle Room (without Transdev/BPS) with the objective of concluding a just contract.  She expressed her deep concern to conclude our contract, given the current, imminent threat of a State takeover (receivership) of Boston Public schools, a move which could override her authority and vacate union contracts.  

Without a concluded agreement drivers would be in serious jeopardy – contract rights, economics, retro pay, etc.  We spent nearly 10 hours in the Eagle room and continued the process at the Union Hall on May 18th, where the union reached a Tentative Agreement on a new offer, including significant improvement to economics and retirement union rights.  It also addresses an historic injustice to our deceased members.   The Negotiating Committee with the USW International met on May 19^th and, without objection, is strongly recommending ratification of this new agreement.    

TA Highlights

• Retirement Justice
  Immediately year one – 35 retirement severance slots.  10 of these slots are for our recently dearly departed sisters and brothers, with an additional 5 for those who died at the beginning of the COVID emergency March 2020-June 2021, Charlie Hoy, William Dooley, Fred Green, John Cheevers, and Maximo O’Neal.  There are 5 more slots for deceased drivers in year 1 (to be rolled over to next year if not used).  The offer we rejected had only 15 slots and NO retirement justice for our deceased members.  
  Year two – 35 slots, including 10 for deceased plus any roll over from year one
  Year three – 35 slots, including 10 for deceased plus any rollover
  Retirement severance increased to $1100 per year service

• Wages – School Rate
  Year 1: Immediate & Fully Retroactive to July 1, 2021 –  5.1%   $28.00 ($1.35 increase)(Over Time @ $42.00) 
  More than $3 Million in new, frontloaded wages.  Average Real Full-Value (wages + benefits) Hourly Rate results in average $85,577 yearly total compensation, with half of the workforce making significantly more.
  Year 2: July 1 2022 (in one month) – 2%  $28.56 (Over Time @ $42.84)
  Average Real Full-Value (wages + benefits) Hourly Rate results in average $88,558 yearly compensation.
  Year 3: July 1, 2023 – 2% $29.13 (Over Time @ $43.70) 
  Average Real Full-Value (wages + benefits) Hourly Rate results in average $91,204 yearly compensation.

Charter rate
Year 1: Immediate & Retro $18.00 (OT @ $27.00)  
Year 2:  – $18.36 (OT @ $27.54)
 Year 3 – $18.42 (OT @ $27.63)

• Increase the Minimum Weekly Flat Rate for the first time in 35 years, from 25 to 31 hours.

• New Driver Recruitment, Training and Licensing program. Transdev/BPS will immediately initiate an aggressive hiring program to recruit, train and license greater Boston residents, particularly in Communities of Color.  No longer will holding a CDL/School bus license be a precondition for the job. The company will give a $4,000 New Hire Bonus. In addition to remedying the profound driver shortage, this Union-demanded hiring program will also give a long overdue opportunity for good union jobs for the community, including our friends and family.  Of course, USW Bus Monitors will continue to have Absolute Preference in hiring and upgrade training.

• Covid 19 – The Union will partner with the City of Boston, Boston Public Health Commission, BPS and the company to address issues related to COVID 19.  This is in addition to their agreement commitments from this past Fall. 

• The company will solicit a Request for Proposasl from dental insurance carriers including Delta Dental. 

• Accident vs Incident dollar amounts increase July 2021 – $760; July 2022 – $780; July 2023 – $800

• Sickness & Accident rate increases July 2021 – $350; July 2022 – $375; July 2023 – $400

• 401K – Future protection for continued Union administration and service for the 401k Plan and member participants.  Wage increases, including the retro payments, will be reflected in additional 401K employer contributions at 3.6% of the gross total, now nearly $2 million a year.

• Paid Holidays – Strike the phrase “Thanksgiving Day plus” and revise as follows: “Paid Holidays. Indigenous Peoples Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day plus eight (8) floating holidays to be designated at the beginning of the school year which coincide with school holidays…” The Union will refer to the 4th Thursday in November as “National Day of Mourning”

• Remaining concessions – While all the most serious concessions were beaten back, the remaining few include limiting the duration of the Emergency leave to 15 days with an additional 15 upon request.  The bosses’ initial demand was to eliminate Emergency leave in total.  Of course, drivers have access to the 13 weeks of federal and state paid Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and all the other CBA leaves to address their needs. Tardiness – Drivers who arrive late but the standby has not begun their inspection check shall have the right to do their run.  Otherwise, the standby will do the report, late driver will only get paid if they are given other work or once a quarter put in for a personal day. Codify the company Dry Runs policy – Following the selection of a route and prior to the first active day of the route, drivers must complete their Dry Runs. Paid at Charter rate.  Drivers who fail to complete their Dry run may be subject to discipline. 

• The Mayor and BPS will sign new Letters of Agreement A and B dated to 2025.  Since 1991 the agreements provide Job, Contract and Union Rights guarantees should the City decide to change employers.

The Company’s 5^th “Last, Best and Final Offer” represents literally millions of dollars of progress for our members, our families, retirees and the families of our deceased members.  It makes significant progress to righting historic discriminatory wrongs against us.  And it provides a new Community Jobs Program based on the best school bus compensation in the region, vital to ensuring both continued professional service to the children and families we serve and continued strength and security to Local 8751.

We believe that this is the best that we can get at this time, even if we had a strike during this historic pandemic.  It is also critical that we ratify and get our economics in our pockets, and in particular our retro, before any anti-union State “receivership” intervention that could threaten these hard-won gains. 

We know that it is the fighting history of Local 8751, our reputation and determination that have achieved these gains, even without a strike.  The City and bus company know we are serious about achieving our justice.  

Come to Tuesday’s Membership Ratification meeting.  All OUT!  Let your voice be heard.  

Let’s finish the job, get our well-deserved retro now, and secure justice for retirees and our deceased members.  

Solidarity Forever! 

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Download PDF Flyer

Contract Negotiations Update All Out to the Membership Meeting for full analysis, discussion and vote on Transdev / City Hall’s most recent “Last, Best and Final offer”.

The meeting will include updates on discussions with Mayor Wu regarding the cruel, discriminatory treatment of school bus drivers concerning our retirement rights, unfair retiree caps, severance pay, deceased members rights to retirement severance, etc.

The Union Negotiating Committee met and is unanimous in our recommendation to the membership that we REJECT the offer that Transdev prematurely and inappropriately mailed to our homes last week. The Committee members believe that the membership should send us back to the negotiating table for more economic justice and rights, including respect for our members who need to retire and deceased members.

 Our International Staff Rep, John Buonopane, fully supports the Local’s efforts.

We have made significant progress, like the 5.1% wage increase now frontloaded in year one and retro to July, and the removal of most of Transdev’s proposed concessions. But we believe we are entitled to more, and there is more.

COVID and inflation are raging! Many workers in our industry are rightfully seeing historic wage increases and bonuses for our frontline, essential work during the pandemic and for our sacrifices, some with our lives. Our retirement justice is long overdue.

Let your voice be heard! Send a clear and strong message to Transdev and Mayor Wu that Local 8751’s members are united and prepared to fight!

* For Health & Safety, Masks Required *

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In near-daily contract negotiations, including weekends, Local 8751’s Committee & USW Staff Rep have fought back Transdev’s union-busting concessions and brought Mayor Wu’s administration to realize that the Union’s demands for “Contract Justice” must be met.

The Transdev/City offer now stands at $1.00 (3.75%) retro to July 1, 2021, and 2% each for years 2 and 3.  This is substantial, but not good enough for us essential, frontline workers who have sacrificed too many lives and too much financial loss throughout the pandemic.  4%, 3% 3% is the Union’s minimum cost-of-living postion.

Local 8751 power has won weekly COVID-19 & Flu Vaccinations and Testing at every yard worksite, unique at BPS and nationally.  Mayor Wu’s administration has just agreed to a high-level meeting, including Dept. of Health Commissioner Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, about the COVID-19 emergency at the yards.  We Demand improved COVID-19 protocols and driver accommodations, Our Human Rights!  Dozens of drivers are out COVID-19 positive today, punctuating the Union’s position that BPS should be remote during this awful surge

We Demand more than 15 of our senior veteran drivers be allowed to retire with benefits, Now!. The Union’s demand at the table is 30 this year, 40 retirees more in years 2 and 3.  We Demand more employer contribution to all of our only retirement savings, at least 4% in year 2!  

Our members deserve the dignity and respect of the City’s promised Delta Dental plan (Cigna’s inferior service is an insult to our families), and a 35 hour minimum guarantee just to survive in greater Boston.

We demand Transdev and BPS initiate an Emergency New Hire program with paid training to alleviate the extreme driver shortage.  There is no shortage of Monitors and young community workers who would like to drive a bus; there is a gross shortage of pay, benefits, training, health & safety, and respect!

The Steelworkers and Local 8751’s fighting Committee have told Transdev/City negotiators that our Jan. 20th Membership Meeting will be either a Contract Ratification Vote or a Strike Vote.  No more fruitless extensions.  We have been struggling and working overtime long enough without Contract Justice.

Due to the raging pandemic, Local 8751 is prepared to conduct the membership meeting via secure Zoom, if necessary.  Watch your Union texts.  If you are not receiving texts from the Union, text your full name to Steve Gillis at 617-733-2950.  Solidarity Forever!

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Boosters & Flu shots  

TOMORROW – Wednesday

@ FREEPORT 

9:30  –  11:00 AM

As our contract’s Jan. 6 expiration nears, USW Local 8751 has been in daily contract negotiations with Transdev and the City.  

The Union’s #1 position: “In light of…Transdev and BPS/City Hall’s inability to ensure the health and safety of the drivers, monitors, staff, and the students and communities we serve, we call on the City to return to remote education until such time as all COVID-19 safeguards are in place.”

Thanks to Roslindale Medical & Dental Center, starting January 2022

VACCINE CLINICS will rotate in ALL YARDS every Wednesday.

C-19 VAX CLINICS (Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J) & Flu shots are available to ALL BPS Transportation Workers and our families, no cost.

Wednesdays January 2022

9:30 – 11 AM

@ Freeport 1/5

@ Washington 1/12 

@  Readville 1/19

GET TESTED  *  BE SAFE  * Paid 15 min/wk 

Daily at All Yards 

9:30 AM – 1 PM

@ Washington: Mondays & Friday

@ Freeport: Tuesdays & Thursdays

@ Readville: Wednesdays & Fridays

USW Local 8751 encourages everyone to heed medical advice and City mandate and GET PROTECTED TODAY.   Many vaccinated people test positive, get sick and spread C-19, but few experience severe illness and death.  Carry your Vax Card every day.

Vaccinations and masking are the best acts of solidarity that Local 8751 members can show our co-workers and communities we serve.  Plus $150 per vax card. 

C-19 Vaccinations & Boosters

@ Freeport

Tomorrow 1/5

Text STOP to end

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The Union began the session, which included Mayor Wu’s city hall and BPS representatives, stating our position that BPS should go remote in January due to the rapidly spreading Omicron variant that is sickening children and our families.

Last night, Transdev posted yet another positive case at work, dozens in recent weeks. Transdev and BPS continue to refuse the Union a full accounting, including BPS monitors.

We demand Mayor Wu immediately use her authority and provide a full report of C-19 in BPS’s transportation operations.

Starting in January, C-19 vaccinations & boosters (Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J) will be available to ALL BPS Transportation Workers and our families, no cost, rotating every Wednesday between Readville, Washington, and Freeport, 9:30 – 11:00 AM.

USW Local 8751 encourages everyone to heed medical advice and GET PROTECTED TODAY.   While vaccinated people can test positive, get sick and spread C-19, those vaccinated rarely experience severe illness and death.

Staying up to date with vaccinations and masking are the best acts of solidarity that Local 8751 members can show our co-workers and communities we serve.  

Boston School Bus Union. COVID-19 Vaccinations Boosters & Flu shots

TOMORROW – Wednesday @ Readville 9:30 – 11:00 AM

Text STOP to end

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Banging drums and chanting, “No Contract, No Work!”, hundreds of Boston school bus drivers from far-flung yards converged on their employer Transdev’s office during their morning break on Tuesday, November 9.  With a week to go until contract expiration, USW Local 8751 drivers and their supporters blockaded the street and entrance to the billion-dollar, transnational corporation’s headquarters for two hours in a dress-rehearsal of their intention to strike.

Darlene Lombos, Secretary Treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, opened the “Contract Justice Now!” rally championing “the dangerous work of you essential, frontline workers during the pandemic.  You have a right to better wages, benefits, retirement and respect for your service to the children of Boston.”
Watch Video

Lombos referenced the 5 deaths, including 4 Local 8751 members, and many COVID-19 illnesses in the school bus operation since the March 2020 lockdown, when Union drivers organized delivery of tens of thousands of meals to Boston children and their families.  This week a spike of Delta COVID-19 has begun to close schools in the district again, with rapid spread to the bus yards where drivers, monitors and dispatchers are experiencing a surge of breakthrough cases, sickness and quarantines.

John Buonopane, Steelworkers’ staff rep, brought leaders of USW locals recently victorious after being locked out by greedy National Grid.  “We demand extended COVID-19 full pay and benefits for our hard-working members who have sacrificed so much.  Our physical and financial health and safety is the only thing that can keep this school system running.  Without it, the system will completely shut down.”
Watch Video

Local 8751’s spiritual advisors Bishop Felipe Teixeira and Imam Abdullah Faaruuq inspired the crowd, recounting many instances of Local 8751’s solidarity with struggles in their communities.  Imam Faaruuq lead the crowd from atop the Dorchester Art Project’s (DAP) truck singing The O’Jays’ legendary, “Got to Give the People Want They Want!”
Watch Video

With Boukman Eksperyans, Street Dogs and Bob Marley fight songs blaring from DAP’s truck, workers danced around the picket line in a militant, festival-like display for bosses peeking out their windows.  Workers World Party’s young activist singer Kristen Turgeon fired up the rally belting out the coal miners’ anthem, “Which Side Are You On?”

 André François, Local 8751’s 3-term elected President, spoke to the members’ seething anger at Transdev’s weekly pay shortages, constant discipline harassment, refusal to negotiate, and brutal pandemic working conditions.  François condemned “Transdev bosses who continue to sit in their cozy offices counting their big paychecks while drivers and monitors are forced to burn our own gas to survive all day outside in Boston’s freezing and rainy weather.” 

The Union’s near 1,000-strong workforce are predominantly immigrants from Haiti and Cabo Verde, who took up President François’ call with repeated chants of “Transdev, You Will Know!  Union Busting’s Got To Go!”

François congratulated mayor-elect Michelle Wu, saying, “We are optimistic that when Mayor Wu takes office next week, her campaign promise to be the workers’ rights mayor for all can force Transdev to do the right thing and avert another school bus drivers’ strike.”

It’s a shortage of wages, benefits, respect

Ten-year veteran driver Dulande Florestal told this reporter, “We are suffering.  We can’t afford to pay rent, buy food for our families, and commute to work with prices going so high.  They say there’s a shortage of school bus drivers.  Look at Brockton and all the other districts raising wages to $30 and more.  If Transdev wants to keep us driving, they have to pay for it.”

In the greater Boston region, Governor Baker has called in the National Guard to drive school children in cities and towns whose drivers earn significantly less than Boston.  As a Boston School Committee member put it at a recent City Council hearing, the Union’s “collective bargaining agreement with respect to the busing policy” would turn such an order in Boston into a “fiasco”. [Boston Herald, Oct. 7, 2021]

Felipe Martinez, an Uber/Lyft driver organizing in Boston as the Boston Independent Drivers Guild, pledged his budding union’s solidarity.  Martinez condemned “Uber’s campaign to turn all professional drivers into contractors without worker rights.  We won’t cross the lines!!”

Myles Calvey, Business Manager of the fighting Verizon Workers IBEW 2222, recalled decades of strike solidarity with Local 8751.  Calvey pledged, “Whatever back up your great local needs, IBEW 2222 will be there!”

Steve Kirschbaum, Local 8751 VP, helped found the Union during 1970’s street battles against racist, para-military forces who violently attacked buses carrying Black and Brown children to segregated white neighborhoods.  Kirschbaum blasted the City’s disrespect and negligence in siding with Transdev.  “When Transdev, then called Veolia, first came to town in 2013, their first act was to fire the Union’s leadership and frame us up in court with 30 years of charges.  We beat them back then with our solidarity and determination to shut them down.  The City of Boston continues to give Transdev a sweetheart deal of total cost pass through.  The City has a very short time to intervene to avoid catastrophe.”

The Steelworkers contract expires, coincidentally, one day before Mayor Wu takes office, the usual January swearing in unexpectedly pushed forward to November 16.  On November 2, in a landslide against an opponent whose program included more cops and attacks on students’ right to transportation, Wu became the first woman and person of color ever popularly elected to mayor in the 400-year history of this hometown of U.S. settler colonialism.  Her campaign, which included the program of housing and healthcare, not jails for houseless people who use drugs and support for the Black Lives Matter movement’s demand to fund social services from bloated police budgets, reflected the progressive mood of Boston’s now majority communities of color. 

As strike signs are being printed, Local 8751 has found itself in round the clock negotiations with various sectors of Boston’s ruling class based on the Union’s front-page strike preparations.  Whatever developments the next days’ struggles bring, Local 8751’s ranks proved in their first test of strength that joining the national wave of strikes, job actions and resistance organizing against big capital is the only road to survival and a better world.  

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