School Bus Workers Switch Unions | Fitchburg employees choose Teamsters
By an overwhelming majority, bus drivers and other employees of First Student Inc. in Fitchburg have voted to switch their union allegiance from the Amalgamated Transit Union to the Teamsters.
An election by drivers and monitors in June drew 145 votes for Teamsters Local 170, 13 for ATU Local 690 and three to disband the workers’ union entirely. In a separate vote, six mechanics voted unanimously to move to the Teamsters.
Altogether, 174 employees are represented by the union.
Workers who helped organize the union switch said they were unhappy with both the local ATU leadership and the level of support from the parent union.
“They just really never represented us the way we needed to be represented,” said Daniel Troche, a driver who invited the Teamsters to get involved at First Student.
Troche and Patricia LeBlanc, another employee and supporter of the Teamsters, said union members had asked the local ATU leaders to step down but had been rebuffed. LeBlanc said she had been the local’s recording secretary under the ATU but had stepped down because of problems with members of the executive board.
“There was no unity at all at work,” LeBlanc said.
Michael Hogan, president of Worcester-based Teamsters Local 170, said the win at First Student is part of an effort by the organization to unionize school bus workers and improve their job standards. But the election was unusual in that the workers were already represented by another union. Generally, Hogan said, the Teamsters have “no raid” agreements with other unions, which forbid encouraging workers to switch their representation. But he said an agreement with ATU expired about two years ago.
ATU declined to comment for this story.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments