School Closures Put Bus Drivers In Limbo

While teachers can count on their contracts to keep them paid during the Covid-19 shutdown, bus drivers in Hamden have been left without a paycheck, and with few clues about whether they will remain unpaid.

Thanks to different contract language, New Haven’s drivers are OK for now.

On March 12, the Hamden school district announced that it would be closing school due to the novel coronavirus until further notice.

Starting the next day, bus drivers in the district suddenly found themselves with no work — and no pay.

Employees of the school district are mostly sheltered by their contracts. Teachers are guaranteed pay through the end of the school year.

But bus drivers don’t work for the district; they work for a private contractor. Multiple bus drivers in Hamden told the Independent that their employer, First Student, has stopped paying them since the shutdown began. Now that it looks like students will be out of school for the rest of the spring, they said, they need to have their pay reinstated soon, or they would be forced to look for other jobs, if they can find them, leaving the district without drivers in the fall.

Hamden and New Haven both contract with First Student to provide transportation for their students, but contracts differ between towns. New Haven has committed to continuing to pay First Student while schools are closed. Hamden has not yet made any decisions regarding its bus contract, said district Chief Operating Officer Tom Ariola.

That means that for the time being, Hamden drivers have been left in the lurch without wages and without any certainty about whether they can count on pay in the future or not.

After Hamden announced that it would be closing schools, First Student told its drivers to file for unemployment. Some drivers said their applications have been accepted; others said theirs had not. One driver, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing her job, said the drivers who had not been accepted were told they might have to wait up to three weeks for unemployment benefits because so many people are applying for them.

In Hamden, bus drivers are guaranteed a minimum of 25 hours a week. For those who have worked at least ten years on the job, that means they see at least $525 a week. Many earn more than that by driving students to field trips and sporting events. Unemployment benefits are based solely on base pay, and do not factor in the field trip and sporting event income many count on to help make ends meet.

“People are scared that they can’t pay their loans, they’re going to lose their cars, their leases are up and you can’t pay the difference…” said the driver. ​“We’re going to take a beating.”

Waiting For The Lawyers

On March 20, First Student President Paul Osland interviewed with National School Transportation Association Executive Director Curt Macysyn. He told Macysyn that each district’s contract is different, and that getting a commitment from districts to pay out their full contracts will allow First Student to continue paying its drivers.

“What our focus has been on is engaging with our customers to secure from them continued support if this is a long-term shutdown to help us be in a position to pay our employees,” Osland said. He said his company has been trying to ​“make those arguments that I think are quite compelling, that whether it contractually specifically requires it or not, that they should continue to pay the vendors.”

If First Student is unable to pay its drivers, he said, school districts could find themselves in a position in the fall where they don’t have anyone to drive their students to and from school. He said that as of March 20, about half of First Student’s customers had agreed to continue paying the contracted amounts through the end of the school year.

New Haven Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Michael Pinto said that New Haven has committed to continuing payments to First Student because its contract requires it to. ​“We believe we have to continue to pay,” he said.

Jen Biddinger, a spokesperson for First Student, said that means First Student will pay its New Haven drivers.

Hamden has not yet come to a conclusion about how it will proceed with its payments to First Student.

“We have our attorneys looking at our contract, and they’ll be advising us to the language in it and our options,” said Ariola.

He said the district has not yet discussed what it will do. Once the attorneys have reviewed the contract, he said, it would be up to the Board of Education whether the district continues to make payments, if it has a choice at all.

“Obviously, it has to be good for all parties,” he added, referring to the board’s decision about how to proceed.

“At First Student, we take pride in being a part of the district’s team,” Biddinger wrote in an email to the Independent. ​“The support we receive from Hamden Public Schools allows us to serve the community with drivers who are the best in the industry.” She said the company is working with the district and ​“look[s] forward to agreeing upon a solution to support our drivers.”

District administrators have been busy trying to make distance-learning plans and make sure their students have meals while school is out. But the longer the district waits to make a decision on its bus drivers, the longer their drivers will go without pay, and the more drivers they risk losing.

Becoming a bus driver is not easy and it takes months, drivers said, and the Hamden lot doesn’t have a lot of extra hands who can fill in if drivers leave. If even a few drivers have left for other jobs once fall rolls around, it could be hard to find enough trained drivers to fill the vacancies.

“They’re going to be really screwed in September because there aren’t going to be enough drivers to do their routes,” said another driver, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. ​“I will definitely find another job and move on. I mean, I can’t just sit in limbo like this.”

As a different driver put it, ​“I mean, right now Amazon’s offering good pay out there.”