Members take lead in finding creative alternatives to contracting out jobs 

In the space of a few months, AFT activists have averted threats of school bus privatization in both Minnesota and Texas.

The San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel gets much of the credit for the Texas district's decision to spend $2 million for new buses and drivers. Planned improvements include buying 75 new buses, hiring 62 new drivers by the end of May, and opening a new transportation facility. Many assistant drivers, now doubling as custodians or other school employees, are obtaining their commercial driver's licenses and will move into the driver slots.

Told there was nowhere to locate satellite parking to alleviate overcrowding at the main lot and mechanic bays servicing about 1,300 vehicles, union members kept pressing the school board for a solution. Finally, a tract of underused city property was found that will be converted into a parking lot.

"When you push the district hard enough, you get results," says Rachel Martinez, executive vice president of the alliance, who tapped into her good working relationship with the district's transportation director. "Now I know to do my research and dig a little deeper."

Meanwhile, school bus drivers in Minnesota have saved their jobs and have gotten brand new buses in the bargain, thanks to a relentless 18-month negotiation that ended last fall.
The trouble began, as it so often does, with a superintendent who convinced the board to include privatization language in the upcoming contract with bus drivers for the McLeod West Public Schools in south central Minnesota. Never mind that the district had no backup for its claim of cost savings and no commitment to new or safer buses.

Quickly, the 24 united members of the McLeod West Educational Support Professionals swung into action, enlisting legal help from their state federation, the AFT-affiliated Education Minnesota, and bringing the issue to the community's attention through mailings, ads, lawn signs, attendance at school board meetings, coffee klatches and even a float in the homecoming parade.

McLeod West ESP proved that the schools could save up to $100,000 a year by leasing brand new buses and having regular employees drive them. During a special board meeting in October, a motion to lease new buses and retain the local union drivers was unanimously approved.

"We don't think some administrators have a clue about how to solve problems like this. They simply take the easy way out," says former local president John Lipke, now a member of the union's regional governing board. "We saved the district a ton of money, kept our jobs and have new buses."