Windham County students were able to catch the bus on their first day of school, despite the breakdown of tense contract negotiations between bus drivers and monitors and the private company that employs them.
Unionized drivers and monitors started picketing last week after their employer Travel Kuz, a subsidiary of Beacon Mobility, locked them out of the company’s Brattleboro offices. The lockout follows weeks of continuous back and forth between the company and Vermont Teamsters Local 597, which represents the transportation workers.
While those employees haven’t returned to work, replacement drivers were brought in ahead of students’ first day back “to ensure that transportation runs as smoothly as possible,” wrote Windham Southeast Supervisory Union Superintendent Mark Speno in a statement on Tuesday.
Routes would be covered by these drivers for all of the district’s schools, he said, which serve students in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney and Vernon.
“Communication between the transportation company and drivers union have not stopped, and both sides continue to work toward a resolution,” Speno wrote.
But replacement drivers don’t have relationships with students or familiarity with the area to address certain issues the same way existing drivers could, argued Curtis Clough, Union President of Vermont Teamsters Local 597.
As part of the negotiations, the union is asking for a pay increase, enhanced health benefits and a provision to ensure workers get paid on time.
“We want fair treatment that's equal to what other bus drivers are receiving in locations that are reasonably close to where the Brattleboro drivers work every day," said Clough. “Until the company is willing to open their eyes and start treating the bus drivers with the respect that they deserve, they're going to continue to have these kinds of issues.”
Clough claims the lockout is a tactic to pressure drivers and monitors to accept Travel Kuz’s terms for their contract, and said the union plans to continue picketing outside area schools for as long as it continues.
“We will be there reminding the company that they have an obligation to treat their employer, their employees fairly, offer them fair wages, offer them a fair compensation package, and treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve,” Clough said.
Travel Kuz has not yet responded to multiple requests for comment. But in an email shared with VTDigger last week, Travel Kuz said the union’s request would result in a 40% spike in costs to the company” and said it’s prepared to meet with the union to come to a “fair, balanced resolution.”
The union has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Travel Kuz with the National Labor Relations Board for withholding a revenue document it says would allow them to fact-check this claim, and for the lockout itself.
