Relates to contracts for the transportation of school children

1 Co-sponsor

• Martin J. Golden

BILL NUMBER:S5618

Title of bill

An act to amend the education law, in relation to contracts for the transportation of school children

Summary of provisions

Section one of this bill contains legislative findings.

Section two of this bill amends paragraph a of subdivision 14 of section 305 of the Education Law to require the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to include in its solicitations for contracts for school bus transportation for children in grades kindergarten through 12 ("school bus contracts") provisions for the retention or preference in hiring and the preservation of wages, health, welfare and retirement benefits and seniority of employees who perform or performed work for employers party to such contracts, in connection with such contracts.

Section three amends subdivision 14 of section 305 of the Education Law by adding a new paragraph g, which would authorize NYC DOE to seek to amend school bus contracts to include provisions for the retention or preference in hiring and the preservation of wages, health, welfare and retirement benefits and seniority of employees who perform or performed work for employers party to such contracts, in connection with such contracts.

Section four would include a separability clause.

Section five would require that this bill take effect immediately.

Reasons for support

For three decades beginning in 1979, following a school bus strike, NYC DOE's school bus contracts included employee protection provisions (EPPs) requiring school transportation contractors, among other things, to give priority in hiring to employees who became unemployed because of their employers' loss of NYC DOE bus contract work and to pay such employees the same wages and benefits they had received prior to becoming unemployed.

Following the 2011 decision by the New York State Court of Appeals in L&M Bus Corp., et al., v. the New York City Department of Education, et al., NYC DOE did not include EPPs or similar provisions in solicitations for its school bus contracts, which had included such provisions for over 30 years. After the issuance of the first such post-L&M solicitation, there was a school bus strike in January and February of 2013.

This proposal would require NYC DOE to include provisions relating to the retention or preference in hiring, the preservation of wages, health, welfare and retirement benefits, and seniority of employees who perform or performed work for employers party to NYC DOE's school bus contracts in solicitations for such contracts.

In addition, this proposal would authorize NYC DOE to seek to amend previously executed school bus contracts to include in such contracts

provisions relating to the retention or preference in hiring, the preservation of wages, health, welfare and retirement benefits, and seniority, in connection with such contracts.

This proposal will ensure that NYC DOE's future school bus contracts will include provisions designed to avoid service disruption and pension withdrawal liability claims, while protecting the experienced school bus contract workforce from drastic wage and benefit reductions and facilitating the retention of an experienced workforce. It will also enable NYC DOE to seek to amend existing contracts that do not include such provisions to include them.

Accordingly, the Mayor urges the earliest possible favorable consideration of this proposal by the Legislature.