Welcome back — now get out!
The owner of a Brooklyn school-bus firm abruptly booted more than 100 matrons who returned to work for the first time yesterday since going on a monthlong strike — after telling them he had shut down the company.
Joseph Fazzia, president of Canal Escorts, told the shocked members of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union they could apply for positions at his two affiliated school-bus companies — but only if they switched to a different union.
He blamed the Red Hook firm’s ill fortune on the money it bled during the strike — but made it clear he wasn’t happy with the union’s lengthy work stoppage.
“[I’ve lost] hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m not losing another nickel more,” Fazzia shouted toward a group of matrons. “This union thinks they can tell me what to do — they can go f–k themselves!”
A letter distributed to workers and signed by Fazzia, who also heads Boro Wide Buses and JoFaz Transportation, said the escort firm folded because it had been unable to meet its contractual requirements with the Department of Education during the strike. “The layoffs are permanent,” the letter said.
A separate note sent to Local 1181 President Michael Cordiello said the matrons could apply for positions with the affiliated bus companies under a similar pay scale — but with benefits provided by Teamsters Local 854.
Cordiello responded by slamming the company for hiring “inexperienced scabs” to replace strikers and promised that the union would “take all appropriate actions” to defend its members.
“I think it is in retaliation,” said Rosemary Fasanello, a bus matron of four years who lives in Bath Beach, Brooklyn. “He is telling [Local] 1181 workers to go home. They hired all new girls when we were on strike.”
Local 1181, which represents two-thirds of the city’s school bus drivers, matrons and mechanics, launched its strike on Jan. 16 after the city removed job protections from its school-bus contracts.
The strike was suspended Friday night although those job protections have still not been restored.
Some of the union’s more than 8,000 workers felt that the strike garnered little other than a promise from five Democratic mayoral hopefuls to revisit the job protections if one of them is elected next year.
Fazzia later backtracked by claiming that the dust-up had been over the bus matrons not having their certifications updated — rather than a labor dispute with the union.
Elsewhere yesterday, more than 100,000 public- and private- school students got their yellow-bus service restored for the first time in more than a month.
It meant the end of hardships for families that had included multiple forms of public transportation, late arrivals and early departures from work and thousands of disabled students stuck at home for weeks on end.
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli and Kate Kowsh