CIU 20 Transportation Employees To Unionize

Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 transportation employees have enlisted the aid of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) to organize their workplace.

CIU 20, a transportation service created through consortium of local school districts has been in existence since 1971. It was formed to transport special needs children from surrounding school districts to the designated schools that could best serve the needs of those children.

Local school districts who have appointed representatives to the Board of Directors controlling CIU 20 and contribute funding for CIU 20 to operate now feel that the cost of providing transportation through CIU 20 is too expensive. Their answer was to cut the available working hours to the hourly transportation workers, increase the number of students per bus route, and eliminate many of the adult monitors who assist drivers in their duties.

The result is that many CIU 20 transportation workers have seen a reduction in their weekly pay and loss of medical benefits. Benefits for monitors have been eliminated completely. Children they transport are spending extended periods of time riding the bus – some of which don’t adapt well to such changes because of autistic, medical, psychological, and emotional conditions.

Since CIU 20’s inception, their transportation workers have accepted employment without paid sick days, personal days, bereavement, or holiday pay. They are only paid for hours worked, which means should a school be closed due to teacher’s in-service days, or snow days, they receive no pay for those days, as well.

However, due to the extended hours they often worked and the medical benefits they qualified for, workers had few complaints, as previous management were accommodating to personal needs of workers, as they might arise. A recent change in management personnel has apparently created a dissatisfied workforce. Docked pay that has required The Pennsylvania Labor Board to file action on behalf of workers has already been successfully concluded in the return of pay. Such action, along with selective enforcement of policy rules in the workplace, the reduction of hours and the loss of medical benefits has prompted the action of forming a union.

The TWU has filed the appropriate paperwork for a union installation vote. The vote is expected to be conducted before the end of October, 2011.

For more information regarding CIU 20 employees effort to unionize, visit CIUnion20.com.