"Sick" school bus drivers fired

Twenty three bus drivers and attendants of the 260 who took part in Monday's "sick out" have been fired by DCPS. It is illegal for DC's public servants to strike so a coordinated calling-in-sick by the union members is seen as a way of protesting payroll and benefit problems, although if you listen to the principals of the story you would have a hard time knowing any sort of stoppage / protest took place. George Johnson, executive director of District Council 20 of the American Federation of State, County and Federal Employees, which represents Local 1959, the drivers' and attendants' union, denied Monday that a strike or work stoppage had been called, and David Gilmore, the District's court-appointed school transportation administrator, denied the firings were connected to the sick out (that didn't happen).

Gilmore said last night that the 23 fired employees were not among those who called in sick and that his decision to dismiss them was not connected to the alleged "sick out."

"These were 23 people who simply did not come to work on Monday and never bothered to call to say they wouldn't be there," he said.

He said that he has required everyone who called in sick Monday to present a doctor's note justifying the absence and that he is reviewing that documentation. He said that he did not know how many of the absent workers had brought in a doctor's note but that he would review each case and decide on an individual basis how to proceed.

Maybe those 260 transportation workers just needed flu shots.