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Sisters and Brothers,
Today the company publicly released its final monetary offer, which was refused by your bargaining committee last night. First Student failed to tell the whole story truthfully. This should shock no one.
We are writing today to clarify why your bargaining committee rejected this offer.
Your committee, supported by our National Union, has maintained from the beginning of negotiations that we want drivers to be paid for all hours worked. For years the school bus industry has been taking advantage of drivers and this practice needs to end, as it has in the Whitby, Ajax location. For reasons that are inexplicable, the company will not apply the same principle to our contract that it agreed to at our sister location.
In its proposal the company put forth a wage offer of $17.50 per hour with a three hour guarantee and one hour of miscellaneous time, which amounts to four hours of pay per day. The three hours is considered what they refer to as LIVE TIME and would only include the time from your first pick up to the last drop off. All other time would be miscellaneous.
The union countered with $16.50 per hour for all hours worked and the company refused, saying the costs were in fact greater than paying $17.50 in the structure it proposed. First Student insists that it wants to pay $17.50 per hour in order to have the appearance that it is paying top wages in the industry to attract new drivers. This is nothing but deception and we ought not to be tricked by this shell game.
The increases were not equally offered to every driver. Each driver would receive a different raise. Some would see significant wage increases while others would see their wages frozen because the offer was less than what they make today.
While the company may be technically correct when stating publicly that its offer amounted to a nineteen per cent increase in total compensation those funds would be unfairly distributed. In our final position to management we agreed to take that same amount of money and apply it equally to all drivers and they refused.
Let us not be deterred or fooled by First Students attempt to divide us.
Every working person goes to work expecting to be paid from the time they start to the time they finish. We should not accept any less. We believe our proposal of $16.50 per hour ($2.50 over the legislated minimum wage) is a fair offer that we can build upon going forward as we work to create a better future for all our school bus driver members.
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee
