More than a dozen labor organizers and
citizens gathered in Burlington's City Hall on Monday night to
express their support for the ongoing labor clash between the Queen
City's bus drivers and CCTA management. Following a marathon 20 hour
negotiating session with the Chittenden based bus company over the weekend, the emerging bus
driver's union in Burlington appears to be a hair's breadth away from
a strike over unsafe working conditions and what has been described in
recent weeks as predatory behaviour on the part of CCTA managers.
Drivers had prepared to
strike for a fair contract on Monday, but a last minute round of
negotiating between the Teamsters and CCTA management appears to have
only postponed what appears to inevitable. Set to be voted on by
union members on Wednesday, the current management offering satisfies
few key demands and preserves a draconian system of gruelling 13 hour split shifts that often lead to extraordinary driver
fatigue. Furthermore, drivers' overall hours are being cut as CCTA
follow the nationwide corporate trend of depending more heavily on
part-time rather than full-time labor, primarily to avoid paying the
benefits earned by full-time employees.
Speaking on behalf of more than 500
students at Burlington High School, a group of nine students read a
compelling statement of support for the drivers that shuttle them to
school each day. “We call on CCTA management and CCTA commissioners
to meet the very reasonable and easy to accommodate demands of the
drivers. It is irresponsible for the CCTA Management to provoke a
drivers' strike that would make it difficult or impossible for many
students to get to school” they said. Choosing to speak as a group
before the assembled Councillors, the students also commended the
Burlington School Board for choosing not to hire replacement “scab”
drivers and urged the Council to follow such an example:
“[t]he City Council and the Mayor
must do their part by supporting the workers of Burlington. These are
our neighbors. They support our economy, our schools and our
students. They deserve better. As the city government that has the
most influence over the CCTA, the City Council and the Mayor should
direct CCTA management and CCTA commissioners to give drivers a fair
contract.”
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| Burlington High School students address City Council on Monday evening |
Also speaking was Ashley Smith, the
ever-vocal organizer with the International Socialist Organization,
who emphatically described the working conditions for bus drivers as
a scandal and urged the City Council to launch an investigation into
CCTA management; setting the mould for other remarks made by the recently formed Bus Drivers Solidarity
Committee.
Another volunteer with the BDCS, Jim
Ramey spoke to the Councillors about the unfolding management crisis.
“Forcing the drivers to drive under the conditions that they now
labor under is unsafe for everyone. The overall incompetence of
CCTA's management has made every city bus a potential catastrophe
that can be avoided by meeting the bus drivers needs” said Ramey.
“The Burlington City Council should support the community it
represents and the bus drivers by demanding a fair contract from CCTA
and recommend a thorough audit of management practices at CCTA,
starting with Tim Bradshaw, to insure that intimidation and Gilded
age labor practices end for good in this city and county.”
As citizens and
organizers filed out of Contois Auditorium in a mass exodus the
marked the end of the March 10th Public Forum, a certain
sense of resignation hung in the air. Despite the testimony before
the elected leaders of the Queen City, despite the gathering of 500
student signatures, and despite the maddeningly long hours of
exhaustive negotiation; it seemed that a decision to strike was all
but inevitable.
The remaining
question, perhaps too obvious to ask, is “What's going to happen
next?” As the Wednesday up-down vote draws closer and closer to a
union left with few options, the people of Burlington are preparing
to support the men and women that put them on the move each morning.
Their vote, more closely resembling a 19th century labor
struggle, is ultimately about the respect and dignity once considered
a trademark of this progressive city. Depending on Wednesday's
decision, the wheels on the bus may simply refuse to go round and
round for much longer.
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