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What he said he doesn't love is his pay — $13.30 an hour — and benefits, including a health care plan Stewart said isn't worth what employees pay each month for coverage.
Stewart said he also wants "more fairness" in how his employer, First Student, awards routes to drivers and pays them for field trips.
Because of these and other issues, Stewart joined 67 other First Student drivers June 3 who voted to join the Teamsters Union.
The 68-40 vote in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 771 marks the second time in three months Lancaster County school bus drivers have unionized.
First Student drivers in Hempfield School District voted March 11 to join an affiliate of the state teachers union, becoming the first school bus drivers in Lancaster County to unionize, according to union officials.
And union reps say they expect more drivers to follow suit in the next year.
Whether the upcoming union contracts increase the cost of transportation services for school districts — and, ultimately, taxpayers — remains to be seen.
But the unions are clearly bucking for higher wages for their members.
"Some of these people are making only $10 to $12 an hour, which is hard to believe when you consider they're transporting kids and having to accept that liability," Mike Green, president of Local 771, said.
"They're completely underpaid. I have warehouse workers who are making more than that."
The Teamsters contract will cover more than 100 drivers and bus aides for the CTC, Elizabethtown Area and Donegal school districts, Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 and several private schools, including Lancaster Catholic High School and St. Leo's Catholic School.
Union membership will likely give the drivers and aides the right to strike.
First Student, which provides busing services under contract to hundreds of school districts across the country, has a "hands-off" approach to unionization, spokeswoman Nicol Jones said.
"We have a relatively unique policy which allows for our employees to decide for themselves whether or not they want to be in a union," she said.
"We don't pursue union membership for drivers, but we have no conflict with it."
About half of First Student's drivers are unionized, and that number has increased modestly in recent years, Jones said.
Stewart said he is hoping a union contract results in higher pay and improved working conditions for him and his colleagues.
"As it is now, garbage truck drivers get paid more than school bus drivers," he said. "The nation's future is worth less than garbage, and that's not right."
Stewart said he also wants First Student to pay drivers their regular salary for field trips, instead of the flat rate of $10.80 an hour they now pay.
He said he also wants more transparency in how First Union awards routes to drivers and more support from the company.
For example, drivers are expected to clean out their vehicles every day, but the company doesn't provide brooms and limits the number of paper towels drivers may have, Stewart said.
Green said the push to unionize drivers here is part of a national Teamsters campaign, Drive Up Standards, that has been targeting private school bus and transit workers since 2006.
Last year, First Student bus drivers in Harrisburg School District joined the Teamsters.
Those drivers authorized a strike two weeks ago when they couldn't reach an agreement with First Student on a contract, but a compromise was reached, and the strike was averted.
No details on the contract were available.
Green said Teamsters representatives have spoken with drivers for other school bus companies in Lancaster County who are closely monitoring how the unionized drivers fare in their new contracts.
"Once they see that, we expect other bus drivers to want to get in touch about becoming a Teamster," he said. "We anticipate a lot more drivers getting in touch with us."
Jones said there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between higher wages for drivers and higher contract costs for schools.
"The company will negotiate with the union just as it has with individual drivers," she said. "Regardless of who we're negotiating with, it's going to be a competitive rate."
Higher pay for drivers "might impact us indirectly," Donegal superintendent Shelly Riedel said. She declined to comment further, saying she was not familiar enough with the First Student contract.
Troy Portser, a spokesman for Elizabethtown Area School District, said it would be premature to comment on the potential impact of driver wage increases on the district's transportation contract.
E-town is in the final year of a five-year contract with First Student worth about $1.5 million a year.
"The drivers are employed by First Student, so the major impact would be on them," he said.
Once the union negotiates a contract for the drivers, they will begin paying monthly union dues equivalent to 2 or 2½ times their hourly pay rate.
Stewart will pay $33.25 a month based on his current rate, or about $400 a year — an expense he's more than willing to incur for union representation.
"For having the backing that we need and having a voice and getting respect, that's totally worth it," he said.
E-mail: bwallace@lnpnews.com
