What's at stake?
Drivers for First Student, a bus company and subcontractor of Fresno Unified, held a news conference on Monday to demand the company address concerns of wage theft, unsafe working conditions and sexual assault.
Dozens of employees who drive some Fresno Unified’s most vulnerable students to school are calling on their employer to do more to protect workers who they say were subjected to wage theft and sexual harassment on the job.
Service Employees International Union Local 521, representing employees of transportation company First Student, made these demands Monday morning surrounded by Fresno-area elected officials, including city council members, school board members and incoming county supervisors.
“We know we carry precious cargo on our buses daily, and we do everything in our power to keep them safe, everyday,” said Monica Apodaca, a First Student driver and SEIU Local 521 member. “Unfortunately for us, our own safety is not a priority for First Student management.”
The allegations shared with reporters this week range from repeated accounts of sexual harassment faced by multiple employees to thousands of dollars in wage theft.
In an email, First Student spokesperson Jen Biddinger ignored questions regarding sexual harassment or wage theft allegations and instead issued a brief statement stressing the company is currently negotiating a new wage and benefit contract in good faith with SEIU.
“First Student remains committed to reaching a fair and equitable agreement with SEIU as soon as possible,” she said. “We absolutely want to provide our drivers with meaningful benefit enhancements and also ensure school bus transportation continues uninterrupted for the families we serve.”
Victor Gamiz, a representative for SEIU 521, said the contract between First Student and the drivers has expired and that negotiations between drivers represented by SEIU and First Student have been ongoing for a year.
Multiple elected officials vowed Monday to do their part in making sure the workers, who provide door-to-door pickup services for students with moderate to severe disabilities, are protected.
Fresno Unified Trustee Veva Islas said she “will be asking our board to look into this” and that she plans to “take further action in investigating” the district’s contract with First Student.
“We definitely do not stand for exploitation,” she said. “We definitely do not stand (for) or condone sexual harassment.”
Fresno City Councilmember Tyler Maxwell said the City Attorney’s Office’s wage theft unit, rolled out as one of California’s first in January, is “looking at this case very closely.”
“Let’s be honest, our service employees carry this county on their backs each and every single day,” he said, “and today we need to have their backs.”
This isn’t the first time First Student has faced public criticism in recent years for its services in Fresno Unified.
Special education teachers have previously spoken out about late drop-offs and pick-ups for students who rely on the transportation service, stating that the disruption to routines can be devastating to students managing moderate to severe disabilities.
What are the allegations against First Student?
In May, Apodaca, a driver and SEIU Local 521 member, became a certified behind-the-wheel trainer at First Student and joined the training department. From May to her last day in the department on Nov. 7, Apodaca said she was sexually harassed by a lead trainer and training ambassador with First Student.
According to Apodaca, the employee would rub his groin on her, forcefully grab her by the head and shove her repeatedly towards his groin area and verbally threatened to assault Apodaca if she chose to speak out.
Apodaca described an incident that she said occurred on May 14, where the employee approached her with a bag of peanuts and made an inappropriate remark to her.
“When I attempted to leave he grabbed my shoulder but I was able to escape,” Apodaca wrote in a statement describing her colleague’s history of harassment.
Initially, Apodaca said, she notified her boss, but said nothing was done. When Apodaca spoke to other drivers, she said she learned other female employees had similar issues with the same supervisor. After speaking out again, Apodaca said she was removed from the training department, along with another colleague who also spoke out against the harassment.
“I have been with the company for over eight years, I have never had a reprimand or gotten in trouble until I got into the training department and had to come in contact day to day with this individual,” Apodaca said in an interview.
A colleague of Apodaca’s, Jeremy Higgins, also wrote in a statement that they witnessed the aforementioned remark by the superior, with both Apodaca and her colleague alleging that a second superior laughed at the inappropriate statement.
“The other person present … didn’t stop the actions of [the employee] but instead laughed and giggled about it,” Higgins wrote in a statement.
According to Apodaca, the employee who harassed her and multiple other drivers was let go on Nov. 27. The First Student representative did not answer Fresnoland’s request to confirm their employment status.
Jacole Paul, a driver who’s worked with First Student for over two years, says the wage theft by First Student is just one of multiple transgressions by the company against drivers, saying unsafe working conditions and intimidation are also part of the problem.
The alleged wage theft by First Student ranges from “requiring drivers to clock out for administrative duties required by the employer like filing daily reports or mileage checks to workers not being paid for time spent cleaning buses,” according to Gamiz.
Paired with these conditions is the sensitive nature of the work of First Student drivers, who transport school children that may have disabilities and require increased care.
“We are more than just a driver, we transport children who get up, jump off the bus, who have seizures, who are non-verbal,” Paul said.
Paul also explained that the wage theft has directly impacted her and her family.
“I can’t live off what they give; I [have] a family of four, I can’t do it,” Paul said, adding “everything’s increasing and our pay is not and they’re taking stuff away from us that they shouldn’t.”
How are people responding to the allegations?
Apodaca told Fresnoland she wants to ensure the employee who harassed her can never work in the industry again.
She also called on First Student to conduct a thorough investigation into what she described as management’s efforts to “cover-up” her colleague’s actions.
“They turned a blind eye to what was going on within the department,” she said.
As for the wage theft allegations, Paul said she just wants “what’s due to us.”
“That’s just simple,” she said. “Pay us what we deserve.”
In her statement to Fresnoland, Biddinger of First Student said “ensuring fair compensation and providing a safe work environment free of harassment are of the utmost importance to us.”
She added that the company “looks forward to continued discussions next week with the union.”
Fresno Unified spokesperson Nikki Henry said the district had no previous knowledge of the allegations against First Student, but said the district expects First Student to address the claims.
“As a Fresno Unified vendor, we expect First Student to treat its employees fairly and to follow up on claims of harassment and wages violations in a timely and thorough manner and in accordance with law,” Henry wrote in an email to Fresnoland.
In addition to city council and school board members, Fresno County Supervisor-elect Luis Chavez spoke in support of SEIU workers at the news conference Monday. Another chapter of the union backed the current council member’s winning campaign for Fresno County Supervisor.
“We’re asking First Student to put students first,” he said, “come to the table, work with our working men and women, and come up with a good plan that addresses the needs and the issues that we’ve talked about.”
Peter Beck, vice president of the district’s teachers union, also expressed solidarity with SEIU Local 521.
“We have an executive board meeting tonight for the Fresno Teachers Association,” he said Monday, “and I’m going to bring it up there as well, because if they’re not going to do their business right, then we’ve got to stand behind our brothers and sisters.”
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