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The city opened up competitive bidding on contracts for more than 1,000 school bus routes today, moving forward with a plan that bus drivers have threatened to strike over for more than a year.

The labor dispute is over job protection for current drivers once the new contracts are awarded. The bus drivers’ union, the Amalgamated Transit Union’s Local 1181, wants a guarantee that current employees won’t lose their jobs regardless of which contractors win the bids. But the city, citing a New York State Court of Appeals decision last year, says it is legally prohibited from providing a protection in its new request for bids.

Last November, Local 1181 President Michael Cardiello said a strike was “likely” if the city refused to budge from its position. Cardiello hasn’t repeated the threat for nearly a year, and today Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the union’s demand “pointless”.

Bloomberg also issued a preemptive warning to parents and principals, saying there was a “strong possibility” of a work stoppage when students return to class in the new year.

“That would make it a lot harder for many students to get to school – and in a year when our students have already missed a week or more of school because of Hurricane Sandy – striking against our school children, we think, would be totally irresponsible,” Bloomberg said at a press conference. (more…)