Mayor de Blasio’s proposal to award $42 million in pay hikes to private school bus workers appears likely to breeze through City Council despite reservations by some members.
At a City Hall hearing Tuesday, several members openly worried that yellow bus companies that won lucrative contracts in the previous administration by refusing to pay their workers standard wages would come out as the big winners in the sudden windfall.
While the public money would go to restore the salaries of veteran drivers, matrons and mechanics, it’s the private firms that would benefit by not having to cover the full costs of veteran workers.
“Presumably, these were the winning bids because they were anticipating paying less to their workers,” pointed out Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan).
“If we authorize a grant program here for those companies that won on the basis of being the lower bidders, are we not penalizing the folks who were bidding and intending to keep their senior workforce and their highest-paid workers in place?” added Garodnick.
Under the mayor’s plan, the city would hand over money to 16 yellow bus companies for the next school year to cover union-scale wages that recognize seniority.
The companies were able to hire workers at base pay of about $14 an hour — instead of top pay of $29 an hour — after employee protections were removed by the Bloomberg administration.
Even some of the council’s most liberal members wondered about the fallout.
“We are in essence rewarding some bad actors,” said Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn).
The union representing the bus employees agreed — to a point.
“There’s some credibility to what [Garodnick] said, but we’re not in that position right now — we’re in a different position,” testified Michael Cordiello, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181.
Garodnick noted that the state constitution doesn’t allow the city to give public money to private businesses — except in limited circumstances.
“It’s not clear to me that supplementing wages is one of them,” he said.
Despite their reservations, many council members were prepared to approve the payments when they come up for a vote Thursday.
“I believe we are trying to do the right thing by people who were basically screwed,” said Williams.
Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Queens) called the seniority bonuses “an attempt to clean up what was not done right.”