Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990 TAG: 9005100690
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Several of the drivers are in pretty hard shape and don't want to take a chance on losing their jobs," driver Carol Cole said today. "The drivers are going to do some things - what I don't know - but we are not striking."
Cole said less that half of Salem's 23 bus drivers had agreed to walk out.
The drivers lost an appeal to the School Board Tuesday for a higher pay raise for the next fiscal year, an attempt to offset the elimination of a health insurance option. They had considered striking, despite being told by the school administration that it is illegal for public employees in Virginia to strike, and by doing so they would risk being fired.
The 1990-91 school budget does not include an offer to employees in which they could opt to take as pay the $500 the school system applies toward the employee's share of health insurance, rather than participate in the school system's insurance policy. Most bus drivers - and other school employees at the lower end of the system-wide pay scale - have, in the past, taken the cash option.
The budget for the next fiscal year includes a pay increase that will raise drivers' salaries from $7,210 to $7,701. But eliminating the $500 cash option will, in effect, eliminate the raise, drivers say.
Drivers asked the board to add another 5 percent to the 7 percent pay raise already approved for drivers for the next fiscal year.
"Insurance wasn't the issue," Cole said. "We had said that was fine, if that's what they wanted to do. But they should have looked at our salary and looked at how it was going to affect us. It affects some of us pretty bad."
The school system was prepared in the event of a strike, Superintendent Wayne Tripp said. Salem does have a few substitute bus drivers, some supervisory people who can drive buses and some teaching staff who are licensed bus drivers, he said.
"I'm not going to say that an action like that wouldn't have an effect," Tripp said. "But I think we're prepared for the eventuality, should it ever take place."
Tripp has drafted a written response to the drivers for School Board Chairman John Moore to review and sign. Tripp said he didn't want to comment on its content until the drivers receive it on Friday.
A majority of the bus drivers boycotted an annual safety awards banquet Wednesday held to honor drivers and safety patrols.
by CNB