New York City school bus drivers will not go on strike Monday, Schools Chancellor David Banks says
NEW YORK -- New York City school bus drivers will not go on strike Monday while the bus companies and union try to reach a new deal, Schools Chancellor David Banks said Friday.
A potential strike "probably would not be for several weeks," according to Banks.
The bus drivers union and bus companies have not agreed to a new contract, but it sounds like the sides are willing to buy more time to negotiate.
Banks and New York state officials were visiting classrooms at P.S. 125 in Harlem when he said parents shouldn't worry about school bus drivers striking in the near future.
"There won't be a strike on Monday. I just got some word recently, before this event today, that if we were to have a strike it probably would not be for several weeks from now. They are committed to negotiating," said Banks. "Doesn't mean that it won't happen, but we certainly don't see anything happening in the next several weeks."
Though both sides are at odds, Banks said they want to avoid putting parents and students through the ordeal that a bus drivers strike would cause.
The New York City Department of Education says 86,000 students, including 27,000 with special needs, would feel the impact of a bus strike.
Gisselle Ramirez, a mother of two children with autism, told CBS New York a strike would be devastating. But even without a strike, Ramirez said she received a troubling email the night before the first day of school.
"'Do not put the kid on the bus, because the bus is gonna take him to another school,'" Ramirez explained. "My sons don't speak. So if you take them to a wrong school, they're not gonna know where they're going."
Banks said early hiccups were expected since bus drivers didn't have their usual meetings to designate routes prior to the start of the school year.
"We knew there would be some challenges. But overall, I think it was an amazing job that was done," said Banks.
Ramirez said she was supposed to be at a conference in Boston for her job Friday, but stayed home to make sure her kids got to school. A parent advocacy group on Facebook is full of similar stories, she said.
"It was crazy. Yesterday was crazy. Everyone was like, 'They dropped my kids at the wrong school, and then they had to drop them back on,'" said Ramirez.
School officials told Ramirez the issue with her son's bus route will be fixed on Thursday, as long as the drivers aren't on strike, she said.
In a statement, the union said there is no commitment not to strike.
