THAT’S THE PICKET? While 152,000 kids were left to face the big chill, only a few strikers braved the cold in Brooklyn yesterday. (Stephen Yang)
THAT’S THE PICKET? While 152,000 kids were left to face the big chill, only a few strikers braved the cold in Brooklyn yesterday. (
)
While most striking school-bus workers rode out yesterday’s frigid blast in the comfort of their homes, students throughout the city had to trudge in temperatures as low as 11 degrees — and with wind chills that hit minus-2.
In East Flatbush, mom Pierreline Charles had to get her 7-year-old wheelchair-using son, Stefon Archer, to therapy, so she walked him 20 minutes to and from school.
“He was crying because it was extra cold today,” said Charles, whose son doesn’t talk but makes faces or touches his face to communicate. “It was horrible.”
She said just bundling up Stefon — in three layers, a snowsuit, a big blanket, gloves, a scarf and a hat — took more than 30 minutes.
“I’m cold and tired and feel drained,” said Charles. “I don’t want him to miss therapy, so I try. But if it gets too cold, I’m going to stay home.”
That’s what a lot of strikers did — as 152,000 city kids braved temps as low as 11 degrees with no school buses, The Post found only a handful of men on the picket lines.
And parents are fed up.
“It’s really distressing. It’s horrible for parents. Everybody’s freaking out,” said Catrin deHaen, of Washington Heights, who has teamed up with four other families to take turns picking up and dropping off their kids at The Anderson School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“The cold weather adds to it,” she said, “but the stress is about working and trying to get stuff done.”
Meanwhile, city officials announced a number of initiatives related to the week-old bus strike, including providing car-service vouchers for certain low-income parents of kids with special needs.
They also approved an emergency waiver that allows bus drivers to serve as matrons. The move was needed because the vast majority of matrons work for the striking union, and special-ed buses can’t operate without them.
The Department of Education said it would push up the start dates for the new school-bus contracts that are at the heart of the strike, and which were initially slated not to start until September.
The union launched the work stoppage because the bids for the new contracts didn’t contain decades-old provisions that protect the jobs of school-bus workers when contracts change hands between companies.
Also yesterday, saboteurs struck at a school-bus parking lot in Brooklyn, punching holes in tires on two buses and deflating tires on 10 others, authorities and bus-company employees said.
In all, 18 tires were flattened on a dozen buses at Reliant Transportation’s lot in Greenpoint.
“Some buses had one flat tire, some had multiple. One bus had all four,” said Leon Hastings, who works at Reliant.
“They looked like they were stabbed with an ice pick,” Hastings said.
The company has been recruiting drivers heavily since the strike was called, putting out ads, and even offering $500 for referrals.
Jimmy Hedge, an executive board member of Local 1181, said he was unaware of the alleged vandalism.
“We’re conducting a civil strike,” Hedge said.
Additional reporting by Bill Sanderson and Reuven Fenton