Dori: Tacoma school bus drivers stealing your money with ‘sick-out’

We’ve got a bunch of school bus drivers in this state who have decided to steal an awful lot of money from the taxpayers.

During the teacher strikes this summer, the Washington Education Association sent out a handbook with a list of tactics to use to get what you want in bargaining. One of these strategies is to have everyone call in sick on the same day.

That is stealing.

It’s stealing money from taxpayers, it’s stealing money from your employer. It is nothing other than theft. Sick days are for when you are sick. They are not to leverage a labor dispute.

On Monday in Tacoma, 400 students with special needs missed school because the buses did not pick them up during this “sick-out.” Twenty-four of the 56 special needs school bus drivers called in sick. You’ve decided to steal money in retribution for being “underpaid.” And not only are you stealing money from the taxpayers, but you’re also robbing these families. Now the parents have to find alternate care for their child with special needs, go late to work in order to drive their child to school, or miss a day of work themselves if they don’t drive. The bus drivers have decided that these overworked, tired, stressed parents of kids with special needs should have to suffer a little bit so that they can try to get more money from their employer.

The reason I have so much contempt for this particular strategy is because we don’t just take sick days for arbitrary reasons here at KIRO. I’ve got to be on my death bed to take a sick day. We don’t steal money from our employer. And when your employer happens to be taxpayers, I have even more of a vested interest in calling out your thievery.

Fire them all. But no, that’s not the way we deal with public employees in our state because we need them as a voting block, don’t we?

RELATED: Teacher strikes are a criminal conspiracy to rip off taxpayers

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