UTU Bus News Digest - January, 1999

UTU Bus Department News Digest
Information of interest to transportation employees January, 1999

Comprehensive Legislative Package to Improve School Bus safety in NY

ALBANY, N.Y., Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Members of the New York State Senate concerned about children at risk of abandonment and injury in school buses, today unveiled a comprehensive legislative package to improve school bus safety.

We're hearing more and more about vulnerable children who are mistakenly left on school buses. There was an abandonment incident as recent as last week right here in the Capital Region," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

"We're also hearing too many reports about bus drivers who don't provide adequate supervision, and drivers who are impaired, unsafe or abusive. We will not tolerate drivers who place our children at risk."

The package of 12 bills would crack down on incompetent and unsafe drivers. The legislation also would arm would-be employers with more information about bus-driver applicants, and would make it easier for companies to fire unsafe drivers.

Several of the initiatives have been previously passed by the Senate, but have not been passed by the Assembly. Legislation included in the package would:

Apply strict school bus driver requirements to drivers of pre-kindergarten and nursery school children and require school bus drivers to examine the entire bus at the end of the route to ensure that small children are not mistakenly left on the bus.

It would also require the mandatory revocation of a school bus driver's license if he or she tests positive from a random drug or alcohol test and increase criminal background checks, and who negligently allow a driver to operate a school bus while drunk, drugged or impaired.

Require school bus drivers involved in personal injury accidents to submit to a breath test. Prohibit school buses from picking up or dropping off passengers on divided, multi-lane highways.

Require school buses manufactured for use in New York on or after April 1, 2000, and all school buses used in New York after April 1, 2002, be equipped with exterior reflective markings.

The bill would also authorize the state Department of Motor Vehicles to deny a registration or renewal application to a school bus operator if DMV officials believe such an application is intended to circumvent a previous suspension listed in a different company name.

ADA Verdict Vacated Due to Conflict with Bargaining Agreement

An employee cannot be held liable for failing to accommodate a disabled worker's shift preferences when the proposed accommodation would have violated its collective bargaining agreement, a federal trial court in Texas rules, vacating a $397,000 jury verdict for the plaintiff. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not require an employer to accommodate a disabled worker by creating a new job or by promoting or transferring the worker to another job in violation of a labor contract's bidding procedures or the seniority rights of co-workers, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas explains.

Referring to the plaintiff's request for a standard, rather than rotating shift, the court writes that an employer "is not required by the ADA to assign less desirable aspects of a job or less desirable schedules or work times to other employees or to hire new employees to perform abandoned functions" of the plaintiff's rotating shift job. Assuming that the plaintiff did qualify as a substantially impaired under the ADA, he could not be reasonably accommodated because there were no available non-rotating shift jobs at the company for which he was qualified by experience and seniority, the court says. (DLR, 12/14/98)