AGENCY TESTIMONY
Employee Protection Provisions and legal challenges
0:22:45
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68 sec
New York City Public Schools faces a significant challenge regarding Employee Protection Provisions (EPPs) in bus contracts, which are designed to protect bus drivers' jobs but are now creating legal and operational obstacles.
- EPPs ensure that if a bus company loses business, its drivers and attendants are prioritized for work by other bus companies
- The New York State Supreme Court has ruled that under current state law, new bus contracts cannot contain EPPs
- This ruling puts NYC Public Schools in a difficult position: they can either keep EPPs by extending existing contracts or risk service interruptions if they rebid contracts without EPPs
- The last time the city put out bids without EPPs, bus drivers went on strike to try to keep these protections in place
- This situation creates a significant obstacle to rebidding contracts and modernizing the bus service
Glenn Risbrook
0:22:45
New York City Public Schools has chosen to extend our contracts for so long because of a set of terms in these contracts called employee protection provisions or EPPs.
0:22:55
EPPs help ensure that if a bus company loses business, its drivers in attendance are prioritized for work by other bus companies.
0:23:04
We do not want to remove this protecting especially during a driver shortage.
0:23:09
And the last time the city put out bids without EPPs, off bus drivers were on strike and to try to keep these protections in place.
0:23:22
However, unfortunately, New York State Supreme Court has ruled that under current state law, new bus contracts cannot contain EPPs.
0:23:31
This means New York City Public Schools is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
0:23:36
We can keep EPPs by continuing to extend our existing contracts as we have done for 45 years, but we can take this protection away from our bus drivers and risk interruptions in service as our driver's fight to keep these protections in place.
0:23:52
The state can help.
