With the promise from several Democratic candidates—one of whom is likely to succeed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg next year—that they will “revisit’ school transportation contracts to ensure that the experienced and trained school bus drivers and bus matrons will be treated fairly, the members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1181 have ended their strike.

New York City school children with special physical, emotional and mental needs could be bused to school with general education students under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to cut student transportation costs, according to the New York Daily News.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is seeking to cut costs by requesting bids for school bus operations that, for the first time in 30 years, do not contain a requirement that proven, experienced and trained drivers and bus monitors retain their jobs. Over the years, drivers in New York have developed a culture around their profession that rewards hard work and increases safety for children. Now that culture is in danger, reports Al Baker of the New York Times.

One of the ugliest side effects of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression is the continuing practice among many employers of refusing to consider applications of job seekers who are unemployed.  

But the New York City Council yesterday overwhelmingly (44-4) passed a bill that prohibits discrimination against the unemployed in hiring.

While New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to vilify the striking drivers, bus matrons and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) as "greedy villains" bankrupting the city, New York Daily News columnist Denis Hamill paints a real-life picture in a recent column. He profiles Vic and Lucy DiBitetto—a school bus driver and matron on the same Staten Island bus route caring for kids with autism, multiple sclerosis and physical and developmental challenges.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg already has shown he is willing to put the safety of schoolchildren at risk in forcing a strike by the city’s school bus drivers. Now, Bloomberg has shown he is willing to throw away $450 million in state and federal education aid by breaking off talks with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) over a new evaluation system.

Some 8,000 school bus drivers are on strike today to convince New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that only experienced and trained drivers should be behind the wheel.

Watch the video below.  

Following a huge and rapid public outcry that included hundreds of thousands of online petition signatures and phone calls to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office, a threatened clean-up/eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters was postponed early this morning.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to shut down Occupy Wall Street by ordering the  protesters who have been camped out for more than three weeks in Zuccotti Park out of the park at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning while authorities “clean up” the park.