Seattle Schools Threatens First Student (Big Time)

In the on-going saga about school bus service, there's this from Teamsters Local 174:

In a direct response to Local 174 Secretary Treasurer Rick Hicks’s letter dated October 30, 2017, Seattle Public Schools Assistant Superintendent for Operations Pegi McEvoy has sent a letter to First Student. 

A PDF of the letter is available here.  

The letter states that if First Student does not reach a resolution with the Teamsters to avoid a strike, the District will be seeking damages from First Student to the maximum extent allowed by law — potentially at a cost of $1.2 million per day.


From the SPS letter from Pegi McEvoy (partial):
As you know, thousands of our students and their families depend on bus service each day to travel to and from school. Should daily bus service be disrupted, the lives and education of many students will be significantly and adversely impacted. In addition to this disruption, Seattle Public Schools could also face substantial costs to address your failure to provide the contractually obligated service.

Your contract with Seattle Public Schools mandates that you provide continuous and uninterrupted bus service. The contract provides for significant liquidated damages for every missed route. Our preliminary calculations indicate that liquidated damages for missing all routes due to strike would result in damages of approximately $1.2 Million per day. We will vigorously seek such damages, along with any others allowed, in the event service is interrupted due to a strike.

We appreciate the efforts you have taken to date to resolve the issues with your drivers. We encourage you to promptly resolve remaining issues and avoid a very costly and disruptive interruption to bus service.

Comments

Anonymous said…
So let me get this straight,

If the drivers go on strike the district will seek 1.2 million per day.

Will the district distribute those funds to parents forced to drive their kids to school? Why didn't the district seek millions per day from the teachers union when it went on strike ?


MJ
11/1/17, 11:36 AM
Another View said…
Complaints need to be taken to the bus company, not Seattle Public Schools.
11/1/17, 11:13 PM
Outsider said…
Does the bus company make a ton of money on its SPS business?

Does their contract contain any provision to pass along higher labor costs to SPS when they occur, or do they have to eat the losses until the next contract before they can pass along the cost? And how long would that be?javascript:void(0)

Understanding the economics of the business would help a lot in predicting the outcome.
11/3/17, 1:00 AM
Anonymous said…
And then there were none. SPS already drove Laidlaw out of business. Remember them? There used to be multiple vendors for bus service. If SPS expects people to work for nothing, then they will wind up providing their own transportation, not to mention the propert and owning the buses themselves.

reader
11/3/17, 9:52 AM
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