Ellis Kaplan
Union members walk the picket line today in Queens.
Thousands of city kids were left stranded this morning when school-bus drivers and matrons went on strike, leaving parents scrambling to find other ways to get their childen to school.
On Fox-5 TV this morning, the mayor said the city won't back down.
"There's no extra money so we couldn't change our mind and cave if we wanted to," Bloomberg said. "There's only a certain amount of money. I'm not going to move money away from police and worry about safety in the streets to pay bus drivers."
The mayor also said he would not ask the courts to intervene right now.
"I don't think it's time yet to do that. No. 1, it's not clear that all of the unions are striking. We'll find out later this morning. It's not clear this union won't come to its senses and say I just don't want to hurt the kids -- and this is not something that's going to help them. They're going to lose out on their pay from now until June," said the mayor.
The schools chancellor predicted widespread problems.
"It's going to be chaotic today, it's going to be traumatic. This is the first day. It hasn't happened in 33 years," said Walcott.
Candice Theus, 28, was forced to take her autistic 8-year-old daughter Tatyanna on a 45-minute trek ? including riding a bus, train and a 10-minute walk ? from their Brownsville home to PS 114 in Canarsie.
"She was saying, 'Mommy, I'm tired. I want to take the bus,'" Theus said. "All I could tell her was, 'Well, this is what we have to do right now.'"
The school is giving young Tatyanna a MetroCard, but Theus doesn't get one because parents only qualify for cards if their kids are in second grade or below.
"It's good they're giving her one, but it's still money out of my pocket."
Theus, who normally works during the day at the Harlem YMCA, said that for the unforseeable future, she'll be working only three hours each day because she not only has to drop her child off, but pick Tatyanna up at 2:30 p.m.
"If I don't find someone to pick her up, I'll have to pick her up every day. It's such a big hassle to parents that have to work.
"She's a special needs student, so she relies on the bus."
YOAV GONEN
Buses used to transport special-needs students sit in a Staten Island lot.
Meanwhile, more than 125 yellow buses that the city expected to be running today are stilling sitting in a Staten Island parking lot.
The drivers of the buses, while belonging to a non-striking union, can't go on their routes because the matrons belong to the Amalgamated Transit Union ? the group that initiated today's job action.
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