Providence bus drivers’ strike hits one-week mark

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — One week later, Providence school bus drivers are still on the picket lines, while parents keep getting voicemails, saying the strike will continue.

For single mom Vilmarie Pagan, who doesn’t have a car and has to Uber her two daughters to Nathan Bishop Middle School, the strike is hitting her right in the wallet. It’s cost her nearly $200 in just the last week.

“I’ll show the receipts to the school department and be like listen, you have to pay me, I’m sorry, I have bills,” said Pagan.

She says she’d rather pay than have her girls walk two and a half miles through what she says are unsafe neighborhoods.

“Especially young teenage girls-they get stopped a lot by guys on the street, and something could happen,” said Pagan.

Meanwhile, on the picket lines, striking bus drivers tell me they get it.

“We all have family. We all have children. We are all going through the same thing as the parents out there,” said bus driver Marina Garcia.

“I myself have a first cousin who has a transportation IEP, so I’m getting yelled at by my aunt every night. I get it,” said teamsters business agent Nick Williams.

The sticking point for the drivers continues to be retirement benefits. First student wants the drivers to have a 401k, while the union wants a traditional pension.

“Everybody that works with the school department-the monitors, the teachers, everybody gets a pension but the school drivers,” said Wilbel Abreu.

Union leaders tell me there’s still no progress with negotiations, but they have made headway with the city on a plan to bus students with special needs. The union says the only obstacle is securing enough non-First-Student buses to make that happen, but I’m told they hope to get rolling soon.

Meanwhile, the latest casualty of the bus drivers’ strike is field trips. We’re told they’re all canceled for the time being. 

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