Thousands rally in Downtown Brooklyn for striking school bus drivers
Well over a thousand striking school bus drivers, matrons and their supporters poured into Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn Heights on Sunday afternoon to rally and march over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall.
Drivers from Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union walked off the job on January 16 because the city’s new contract does not include job guarantees for the most experienced drivers of disabled/special-needs children.
The city says it is trying to rein in transportation costs.
The drivers “are being given a bum rap by [Mayor] Bloomberg,” said Martin Haber, UFT union member and chapter leader at John Dewey High School, marching in solidarity with the bus drivers. “Bus drivers simply want their seniority protected. As a native New Yorker, I think it’s a disgrace. These people are trying to make thirty thousand a year.”