NYC School Bus Driver Strike News: 152,000 Students Stranded, Could Last for Weeks

For the first time in 34 years, New York City school bus drivers are on strike, stranding 152,000 students, including 54,000 students with special needs.

"It is going to be chaotic," said Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott on Wednesday morning. "It is going to be traumatic."

Parents struggled to find alternate ways to get their children to school.

"As anxious parents worried how long the strike would last, children boarded subways, hailed taxis and shared rides in cars while city officials warned that the labor dispute could last for some time," wrote the New York Times.

Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents the school bus drivers, went on strike at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. The union is protesting plans by the city to seek out new bids from other companies in an effort to curb costs.

"The city bid out the first batch of contracts, for pre-K bus routes, during the last school year," wrote WNYC. "Those bids originally included the employee protections that currently guarantee Local 1181 workers the same pay if they're hired by different bus companies (drivers make between $14-$30 an hour, escorts make less)."

"But a court found the protections are illegal," WNYC added. "With that decision as precedent, the city argues that it cannot legally include the same protections in all other contracts, including the next batch that expire in June for 1,100 routes serving special education students in grades K-12."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city will stand its ground, however long the strike lasts.

"We couldn't change our mind and cave if we wanted to," said Bloomberg, who insists the city is just adhering to the court ruling.

The most recent strike in 1979 lasted 13 weeks.

New York City spends $1.1 billion each year on transportation for public school students, about $6,500 per student per year.

Bloomberg hopes new contracts will save the city money. "I look back and say we should have tackled this," he said. "We want to move the money from outside into the classroom."

But union leaders say the city has given drivers no choice but to strike, citing the low pay.

"For him to make the remark that this is draining the city's funds is ridiculous," said Michael Cordiello, the president of Local 1181. "He has put our back to the wall. We have no choice but to fight for our jobs."