Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110466
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Several of the drivers are in pretty hard shape and don't want to take a chance on losing their jobs," driver Carol Cole said Thursday. "The drivers are going to do some things - what I don't know - but we are not striking."
Cole said less that half of Salem's 23 bus drivers had agreed to walk out.
The drivers lost an appeal to the School Board Tuesday for a higher pay raise for the next fiscal year, an attempt to offset the elimination of a health insurance option. They had considered striking, despite being told by the school administration that it is illegal for public employees in Virginia to strike, and by doing so they would risk being fired.
The 1990-91 school budget does not include an offer to employees in which they could opt to take as pay the $500 the school system applies toward the employee's share of health insurance, rather than participate in the school system's insurance policy. Most bus drivers - and other school employees at the lower end of the system-wide pay scale - have, in the past, taken the cash option.
The budget for the next fiscal year includes a pay increase that will raise drivers' salaries from $7,210 to $7,701. But eliminating the $500 cash option will, in effect, eliminate the raise, drivers say.
Drivers asked the board to add another 5 percentage points to the 7 percent pay raise already approved for drivers for the next fiscal year.
"Insurance wasn't the issue," Cole said. "We had said that was fine, if that's what they wanted to do. But they should have looked at our salary and looked at how it was going to affect us. It affects some of us pretty bad."
The school system was prepared in the event of a strike, said Superintendent Wayne Tripp. Salem does have a few substitute bus drivers, some supervisory people who can drive buses and some teaching staff who are licensed bus drivers, he said.
"I'm not going to say that an action like that wouldn't have an effect," Tripp said. "But I think we're prepared for the eventuality, should it ever take place."
A majority of the bus drivers boycotted an annual safety awards banquet Wednesday held to honor drivers and safety patrols.
"The reason we didn't go is that they get up there and talk about what a good job we've done and how long it's been since we've had an accident," Cole said. "But they don't want to reconsider and look at the salaries they're paying us."
by CNB