In 1999, Council 760 members working for student transportation contractors to the Hartford Board of Education took the lead on moving elected officials to pass a Living Wage Ordinance. Despite enormous resistance from the companies and the Board, we won recognition of the law for the district's school bus drivers and monitors, "driving up standards" and raising the economic security for hundreds of working families.
In 2008, the mayor recommended to the City's Court of Common Council that a task force be established to strengthen the ordinance. Our members joined a coalition of community advocates to support it, and speak out to ensure that the law is doing what it was intended to: lift more low-wage workers out of poverty and enable them to raise their families in Hartford.
The Common Council voted to pass a set of recommended improvements in March 2010, and we shifted the focus to holding transportation contractors to the city's schools accountable for student health and safety. The proposed Commission on Workplace Rights promises to provide the oversight needed to prevent subcontractors with a record of serious violations to put the city's children at unnecessary and undetected risk.
When these same bus companies, operating under a deceptive subcontracting scheme, attempted to duck their obligations under the Living Wage Ordinance, our members blew the whistle. They moved the City Council President to call for a sweeping investigation, which we expect will expose these contractors' tactics to Hartford's parents, taxpayers, and school bus employees.