As New York City school bus drivers head toward a strike [1], slated for Wednesday morning, the national president of the drivers’ union accused Mayor Michael Bloomberg of trying to gut standards for workers in public services, comparing the mayor to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who controversially rolled back collective bargaining rights for public employees in that state, the Huffington Post reports.
“This is the New York equivalent of Scott Walker’s attempts to strip workers in public services of their wages and benefits,” Larry Hanley, president of the 190,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union, told The Huffington Post. “That’s what it’s intended to do. It is an assault on the foundation of decent wages and decent health care and decent retirement standards.”
Bloomberg, in turn, has accused the union of “abandoning” the city’s students. “With its regrettable decision to strike, the union is abandoning 152,000 students and their families who rely on school bus service each day,” Bloomberg said in a Monday statement. The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to Hanley’s comments Tuesday…