A British Sense of Fair Play

One year ago, the Chairman of the Board of FirstGroup, the British parent company of First Student that with the purchase of Laidlaw has suddenly become the largest operator of private school buses in the U.S., agreed to maintain corporate neutrality when workers joined together to form a union. Yet here we are, only one year later, and First Student is acting just like any other anti-union, anti-worker company.

What does that mean? Captive audience meetings. Firing union activists. Demoting union supporters. Anti-worker consultants. Spin specialists. They've got the whole bag of tricks.

Last week I attended the FirstGroup shareholder meeting in Aberdeen, Scotland with four school bus drivers who have experienced First Student's tactics first hand. These four workers are the true heroes of this fight.

Each of them stood before the Chairman of the Board, CEO and Board of Directors and told them, face-to-face, how their company has violated its pledge to neutrality and has continually retaliated workers who choose to form a union.

British companies have stronger ethics requirements than U.S.-based corporations. It turns out that they are expected to engage the same sense of British fair play abroad as they are home. That is why a significant number of British MP's are joining the fight to hold FirstGroup accountable.

As the largest private school bus operator in the U.S., First Student should be leading the way on ensuring its' workforce is treated with dignity and respect on the job and is the best-paid and most qualified in North America. We place the safety and security of our children in their hands every day.

That's why nearly 3,000 First Student workers have joined the Teamsters in the past nine months and why thousands more are laying the groundwork now.