Strike for Pulaski County Bus Drivers and Support Staff

Children who ride the bus in the Pulaski County Special School Distict will have to find another way to get to school Monday morning. The driver`s union, PASS, announced Sunday afternoon, its members will strike beginning Monday morning. Union leaders say they haven`t had any talks with the district`s administration over the weekend. They requested weekend meetings on Friday, they say, but received no response. PASS union members spent the weekend preparing for the strike, assembling phone lists and making signs. They say the district is breaking an agreement made at the start of the school year to avoid a strike even then. The agreement determined that bus driver`s payments would be based on their total route mileage, instead of just the miles used between the first child pick-up and the last child drop-off. In a letter, Superintendent Dr. Don Henderson said it was costing them more than double the amount projected to pay them that way, so the district must revert back to last year`s method for cost reasons. The union says they`re out of options. "We were waiting to see if the superintendent was going to meet with us, we were going to have any communications with him at all and there just weren`t any," said Sandy Hawkins, PASS president. In a release, Henderson said, "I am very disappointed that the Union chose to take this action. The pay in question had already been extended for 20 days and the administration had requested a meeting for Tuesday January 27 to discuss the issue." Monday morning, about 800 district staffers from bus drivers, to custodians, to nurses and teacher`s aides will begin picketing. The district says they are still having class tomorrow and parents are asked to get their students to school as best they can. But extra-curricular activities, field trips and athletic events will be postponed or cancelled.