Metro

Parents stuck with missed work, long commutes after union strike halts school buses

A livery car driver letting off a child in front of PS 36.

A livery car driver letting off a child in front of PS 36. (Robert Kalfus)

Imam Mohd Qayyoom dropping his kids off at school today.

Imam Mohd Qayyoom dropping his kids off at school today. (Matthew Abrahams)

Buses used to transport special-needs students sit in a Staten Island lot.

Buses used to transport special-needs students sit in a Staten Island lot. (YOAV GONEN)

Thousands of city kids were left stranded this morning when school-bus drivers and matrons went on strike, leaving parents scrambling to find other ways to get their children to school.

Candice Theus, 28, was forced to take her autistic 8-year-old daughter Tatyanna on a 45-minute trek — including riding a bus, train and a 10-minute walk — from their Brownsville home to PS 114 in Canarsie.

“She was saying, ‘Mommy, I’m tired. I want to take the bus,'” Theus said. “All I could tell her was, ‘Well, this is what we have to do right now.'”

Tatyanna will get a MetroCard from her school, but Theus will not because parents only qualify for cards if their kids are in second grade or below.

“It’s good they’re giving her one, but it’s still money out of my pocket.”

Theus, who normally works during the day at the Harlem YMCA, said that for the unforeseeable future, she’ll be working only three hours each day because she not only has to drop her child off, but pick her up at 2:30 p.m.

“If I don’t find someone to pick her up, I’ll have to pick her up every day. It’s such a big hassle to parents that have to work.

“She’s a special needs student, so she relies on the bus.”

SEE: NYC STRUGGLES AFTER SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS STRIKE

Mustafa Khan, 34, a yellow cab driver whose two daughters, ages 7 and 9, attend PS 2, lost out on prime business hours.

“I’m losing three hours. I usually start at 5 a.m. and today I’m not going to start until 8 a.m. This is the good time, if you are in the city.”

“I don’t know what we are going to do if this goes on,” said Khan, who rents his cab for $150 a day.

Mark Jones, 34, a mail clerk in Midtown, said it took 45 minutes to drive his 6-year-old son from their home in Far Rockaway.

“I’m going to work late because I had to drop my child off. It’s just crazy. The union, the mayor and the chancellor are having their own little ego trip and we pay for it.

“At some point they’ll have to come to an agreement or I’ll have to take my son out of school and take him somewhere where there’s less of a commute.”

On top of the hassle of the nixed buses, parents said they were concerned for their children’s safety.

“I depend on the bus,” said Merethe Kaawar, 44, who helps with classes at PS 2, where her daughter Mariam, 11, is in the fifth grade had to walk in the snow and rain.

“My daughter has to take two [MTA] buses to get home.”

Kaawar said she can’t afford the weekly bus fair to go with her. “It’s not safe for kids to take the bus alone. That’s why I have to walk with her.

Joseph Cobb, 38, left his 8-year-old daughter at home today in Starret City because he wanted to find out if her bus was running.

“My main concern this morning was, how is she going to get home? That’s why I didn’t bring her to school. I could get stuck in traffic and she’d be standing out here. I wanted to find out first, so that’s why I came here.”=

“Now I’m finding out that her bus will be running, so she will be in school tomorrow. She’ll be able to get on the bus right in front of the house and be dropped off at the same place.”

“I feel much better, because the only alternative is mass transit, and you can’t put an 8-year-old kid on mass transit. What if she got off at the wrong stop in the wrong neighborhood? I would die knowing she was walking up and down the streets with all those crazies out there.”

Jackson Heights dad Imam Mohd Qayyoom, 52, said his three special-needs children were left in tears when told they couldn’t take the bus to school today.

“They were crying for 15 minutes for the bus. They are used to it, the comforting bus ride,” Qayyoom said. “Last night, when we saw it on the news, they were saying, ‘Why is this happening?’ They didn’t sleep.”

Qayyoom said his children — Faatima, 6, Ramadaan, 8, and Maryan, 11 — would have to take three buses to get to school, and that he can’t afford cabs or private buses because he does not get paid for his religious work.

“I had to borrow [a] car from my brother. My wife is sick, but she had to come with me because I can’t manage three children.”

On Fox-5 TV this morning, the mayor said the city won’t back down.

“There’s no extra money so we couldn’t change our mind and cave if we wanted to,” Bloomberg said. “There’s only a certain amount of money. I’m not going to move money away from police and worry about safety in the streets to pay bus drivers.”

The mayor also said he would not ask the courts to intervene right now.

“I don’t think it’s time yet to do that. No. 1, it’s not clear that all of the unions are striking. We’ll find out later this morning. It’s not clear this union won’t come to its senses and say I just don’t want to hurt the kids — and this is not something that’s going to help them. They’re going to lose out on their pay from now until June,” said the mayor.

The schools chancellor predicted widespread problems.

“It’s going to be chaotic today, it’s going to be traumatic. This is the first day. It hasn’t happened in 33 years,” said Walcott.

Meanwhile, more than 125 yellow buses that the city expected to be running today are stilling sitting in a Staten Island parking lot.

The drivers of the buses, while belonging to a non-striking union, can’t go on their routes because the matrons belong to the Amalgamated Transit Union — the group that initiated today’s job action.

“This yard here can not go out without the matrons, and the matrons are all [Local] 1181,” said 15-year escort Philomena Trapani, who works for Staten Island Bus Co.

She was joined by about 30 to 40 matrons and drivers who were blocking the outlet to a bus depot on Meredith Avenue starting at 6 a.m.

Iniside the lot, drivers who belong to United Service Workers Union Local 355 – some sitting in idling buses – were waiting for instructions on now to proceed without their matrons.

At one point, word came in that the city wanted some of the drivers to work as matrons so that the buses could operate, but the drivers said they’re not certified in CPR and First Aid, as those positions require.

Several said they wouldn’t attempt to cross the picket line regardless.

The devastating job action, called Monday by the union representing most of the city’s yellow bus drivers and matrons, left as many as 152,000 children — including 54,000 special-needs kids — faced with travel nightmares or even getting stuck at home for the duration of the work stoppage.

City officials took to the airwaves yesterday to blast Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union for leaving the students — many of whom have already suffered through Hurricane Sandy and missed a week of school — in the lurch.

“The union drivers are striking against our children, plain and simple,” Walcott said yesterday.

The city distributed free MetroCards to tens of thousands of students yesterday to help them with the expected transportation chaos. Free monthly cards also will be handed out to parents of kids in second grade and younger today.

But MTA officials acknowledged that the cards might not work at all subway stations until later today, nor on all public bus routes until late tomorrow.

The last time city school-bus drivers went on strike was 34 years ago. It lasted three months.

Today’s strike was sparked over a job-protection clause that the city removed from newly bid-out contracts.

Local 1181 claims that up to 2,500 of its members’ jobs will be at stake if new bus companies are awarded contracts in June without the protective clause.

“We’ve tried every option to avoid a strike, but our members feel that their back is to the wall and they must take a stand on this issue,” said Local 1181 chief Michael Cordiello.

Workers were heard chanting this morning “What do we want? Contracts. When do we want them? Now.”

The city disputes the group’s job numbers and insists it wasn’t allowed to maintain the protections because they were deemed illegal by the state’s highest court in 2011.

Education officials also said they’re trying to trim costs from their $1.1 billion yellow-busing budget, the highest in the nation.

Cordiello’s union represents nearly 9,000 drivers, matrons and mechanics — including nearly all the bus matrons who are required to supervise special-ed students.

That appeared to mean that even companies with non-Local 1181 drivers would be prevented from running their special-education routes.

Local 584 of the Teamsters union — which represents roughly 1,000 drivers, matrons and mechanics — said it wouldn’t join the strike because its contract with bus companies doesn’t allow for it.

But its president, Dan Gatto, also said his members wouldn’t cross picket lines.Parents can get updated information on which bus routes are running by clicking the Department of Education link on the city’s nyc.gov Web site or at www.opt-osfns.org/opt/Resources/SchoolRouteStSearch/searchresult.aspx.