“Last night Portland
school bus drivers voted overwhelmingly to strike,” says Jonathan Hunt,
Vice President of the Amalgamated Transit Union which represents the
drivers. “Unfortunately, the parties are close on most issues except for
wages and health insurance. Of most concern is the employer, First
Student’s, proposal to stop paying anything for employee health
insurance,” Hunt stated.
The
employer is First Student, a subcontractor to the Portland Public
School district. First Student is a subsidiary of First Group, a
Scottish multinational corporation. “First Group’s charges to the school
district have been growing by millions of dollars every year for the
same level of service,” says Hunt.
Hunt
says health insurance is a pressing concern. “Our drivers transport the
most important cargo in the city. We all know that children pass on
illnesses and that they get ill much more frequently than any other type
of passenger. It makes no sense to cut their drivers off from health
insurance. What it means is that First Student will take even more
enormous profits out of our local economy, while leaving it for the
under-paid drivers and the community to take up the slack in terms of
health costs.”
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