Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wasn't All and I'm Tracy Alloway. So Tracy, Obviously,
Speaker 1: everyone knows about the so called labor shortage this year,
Speaker 1: like we've we've talked about it many times on the show,
Speaker 1: but numerous employers up and down different industries have all
Speaker 1: talked about the difficulty they've had in hiring or at
Speaker 1: least hiring at the same levels and wage points as
Speaker 1: they had a pre pandemic. Yeah, truly, it's been a
Speaker 1: year of shortages or I guess maybe maybe scarcity is
Speaker 1: a better way of putting it, both in terms of
Speaker 1: like the supply chain, which we've spoken a lot about,
Speaker 1: but also in terms of labor market. So a lot
Speaker 1: of employers saying that they can't find the right employees,
Speaker 1: or if they find the right employees, then they don't
Speaker 1: turn up to actually work, or they're all quitting on
Speaker 1: mass to do something else. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about what else is that other people are actually
Speaker 1: leaving to do. But that seems to be you know,
Speaker 1: the anecdotes that we keep hearing over and over from
Speaker 1: the labor market, right, And it's important to note anecdotes
Speaker 1: from the employer's side. Obviously the anecdotes from the labor
Speaker 1: side might look different. One area that from what I understand,
Speaker 1: is have uh and we'll get drilled down into specifics,
Speaker 1: but public sector employment has been tough, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of governments to particularly areas where people have
Speaker 1: pensions that they can retire to and so forth. You know,
Speaker 1: for a long time post grade financial crisis, the public
Speaker 1: sector cut a lot of jobs. But my understanding right
Speaker 1: now is it's the opposite where the public sector by
Speaker 1: and large is having a really hard time recruiting, and
Speaker 1: of course public sector is more limited budget flexibility and
Speaker 1: so forth then businesses are. But that's a whole area
Speaker 1: or sub component of the labor market shortage that we
Speaker 1: haven't really talked about. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting
Speaker 1: one because is you know, for years, if you worked
Speaker 1: in the public sector, it was considered a very safe
Speaker 1: and stable and to some extent, desirable job. And I
Speaker 1: have to say I'm kind of speaking slightly from experience
Speaker 1: here because I just realized my mother worked in the
Speaker 1: public sector for Austria and she just took early retirement
Speaker 1: last year. I think there's one of the people that
Speaker 1: basically like threw her hands up and said, it's not
Speaker 1: worth it anymore. I'm just going to retire early and
Speaker 1: avoid all this pandemic related stress and um, you know,
Speaker 1: take my retirement benefits and and go live my life.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Now, of course, when it comes to government,
Speaker 1: their varying degrees to which the public actually interfaces with
Speaker 1: the government. But there's no question that for a lot
Speaker 1: of parents, particularly including myself, over the last two years,
Speaker 1: one of the big issues has been schools and getting
Speaker 1: to school, and that is sort of for people, for
Speaker 1: parents who have children kind of one of the key
Speaker 1: ways that they interact with public institutions. And so whether
Speaker 1: those are functioning, whether AHM staffing, whether they can get
Speaker 1: the kids to school h H is to what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. That is a huge way in which these
Speaker 1: shortages can or again these mismatches perhaps are this scarcity.
Speaker 1: I keep using shortages even though I really think that's
Speaker 1: like sort of employers and framing ends up being a
Speaker 1: real issue for the for the general public. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: the only thing I know about this is basically from
Speaker 1: your tweets, But there is apparently there is apparently a
Speaker 1: shortage of school bus drivers, and as you just pointed out,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is particularly a sensitive issue for parents.
Speaker 1: And you know, we talk about inflation being painful for
Speaker 1: people who feel like they're no longer able to feed
Speaker 1: their families or it's going to cost them a lot
Speaker 1: more than it used to. And I feel like you're right,
Speaker 1: this is probably one area where the labor shortage would
Speaker 1: actually be particularly felt by parents. And the question I
Speaker 1: have is whether or not this is an idiosyncratic development,
Speaker 1: because maybe there are individual things around the school bus
Speaker 1: driver market that make it more difficult to hire the
Speaker 1: right people, or whether this is a reflection of that
Speaker 1: broader trend that you were just describing of people really,
Speaker 1: you know, the great resignation that we keep hearing so
Speaker 1: much about and people just deciding that they don't want
Speaker 1: to drive school buses for a living anymore. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: really excited. We're going to dive right into it. Before
Speaker 1: I do, I just want to say my daughter, she
Speaker 1: goes to school very close to our house, as she
Speaker 1: could walk, but she did go to summer camp on
Speaker 1: Staten Island uh the summer, so she did have to
Speaker 1: take a school bus for the first time. So this
Speaker 1: is an important topic for me, and we have the
Speaker 1: perfect guest to discuss it. We're gonna be speaking with
Speaker 1: Corey Muirhead. He's the executive vice president at Logan Bus
Speaker 1: Company and Affiliates. It's the largest New York City public
Speaker 1: school UH bus contractor in the area, has two thousand
Speaker 1: buses in New York City plus another five on Long Island,
Speaker 1: and up until very recently, he was the president of
Speaker 1: the New York School Bus Contractors Association. So we have
Speaker 1: the perfect guest to talk about what is going on
Speaker 1: with school bus drivers. Corey, thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: outlots Hey, Joe and Tacy, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: having me. So obviously we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: claims that there's a school bus shortage or a driver shortage,
Speaker 1: to be more specifically. But before we do, and before
Speaker 1: we get into current conditions, why do you give us
Speaker 1: like a brief overview of what a what pre pandemic
Speaker 1: normal look like in terms of how the market works
Speaker 1: and how many drivers you employed and how much they're paid,
Speaker 1: and just sort of like just what what normal looked
Speaker 1: like pre pandemic. So, pre pandemic people were coming through
Speaker 1: the door and they wanted to be hired. One of
Speaker 1: the things that we see now post pandemic that was
Speaker 1: still very prevalent pre pandemic, and one of the big
Speaker 1: things that we're pushing as an industry is no matter
Speaker 1: what time frame it was, it's always extremely difficult to
Speaker 1: become a school bus driver. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: heavily regulated industries and it is a regulatory marathon. But
Speaker 1: for good reason, right you want to put on the
Speaker 1: most professional, expert people drivers that are transporting kids. You know,
Speaker 1: we're transporting the most precious cargo. So for obvious and
Speaker 1: for safe reasons, you need to have those regulatory hurdles
Speaker 1: in order to put the best and brightest on the road.
Speaker 1: So be that as it may. Back before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: people were coming through the door, but there was certainly
Speaker 1: a little bit of a a stagnant, a stagnation happening there.
Speaker 1: And you know, was it wages? Was it because the
Speaker 1: drivers were only getting six hours per pay. A lot
Speaker 1: of the companies outside of New York City don't offer pensions,
Speaker 1: and they don't they offer four one ks or the benefits.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that you see there's
Speaker 1: a dichotomy between New York City and the surrounding areas
Speaker 1: of Westchester, Long Island, et cetera. Because New York City
Speaker 1: offers family benefits, full time, forty hour paying jobs with pension,
Speaker 1: and a mound in Westchester do not. So you certainly,
Speaker 1: you certainly saw some people leaving the industry because with
Speaker 1: everything going on, people were coming into this industry. The
Speaker 1: pay may have not been as good as other industries,
Speaker 1: but they were coming because of one the stability of
Speaker 1: a pension and two because of the family health benefits
Speaker 1: that you were able to receive. Now, another big thing
Speaker 1: about the city and Long Island, and this is what
Speaker 1: we're all kind of getting together and racking our brains about,
Speaker 1: is you have a job is like despite being the
Speaker 1: length of a school year, like a teacher, when the
Speaker 1: teachers are obviously that are paid than school bus drivers.
Speaker 1: School bus drivers are paid basically forty weeks out of
Speaker 1: fifty two weeks of the year. So if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a full time job, that's extremely difficult to not
Speaker 1: be paid for three months out of a twelve month year.
Speaker 1: So we started to really see people exit the industry
Speaker 1: there as well. A lot of times this industry was
Speaker 1: flooded with retirees because of just the flexibility of the hours,
Speaker 1: the shortness of the routes, certain things that you were
Speaker 1: able to do that it was you know a lot
Speaker 1: of retirees in the NYPD, f D and Y sanitation
Speaker 1: other second jobs that people would retire forty fifty and
Speaker 1: then come and drive a school bus because it only
Speaker 1: took a couple of hours a day for them. That
Speaker 1: was all great and well pre pandemic. Now we'll get
Speaker 1: into why post pandemic that is just completely non existent.
Speaker 1: But that was the flexibility we had where we had
Speaker 1: the full time people in the part time people. So
Speaker 1: can I just press you on this point because I
Speaker 1: think it will inform the rest of our discussion. But
Speaker 1: can you give us, like, you know, if you were
Speaker 1: trying to sell someone on becoming a school bus driver,
Speaker 1: what would be the big selling points that you would
Speaker 1: give them, What is the attraction about the job, and
Speaker 1: historically what kind of people I realized you just mentioned retirees,
Speaker 1: but what kind of people would have been most interested
Speaker 1: in becoming drivers? The people that would be most interested
Speaker 1: in becoming drivers are community members. Flex time flexibility, right,
Speaker 1: So you have people that maybe haven't been in an industry,
Speaker 1: are are new to entering uh the job workforce, and
Speaker 1: they say, hey, what can I do that's something around
Speaker 1: the block or that gives me the flexibility if I
Speaker 1: have children, I five, if I have other things to do.
Speaker 1: So the reason why a lot of people became school
Speaker 1: bus drivers because you got your job done early in
Speaker 1: the morning, you have the flexibility to do some of
Speaker 1: the things in the middle of the day what you
Speaker 1: needed to do, and then you did the afternoon route
Speaker 1: and you got to do whatever you need to do
Speaker 1: at night. As well as being a part of your community,
Speaker 1: you were around your neighborhood. Many of these school buses,
Speaker 1: school bus companies facilities are in heavily densely populated neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people work walked to work. There's
Speaker 1: very seldom do I have many drivers that are driving
Speaker 1: to the facilities. So that was another big, big sticking point.
Speaker 1: Now once again probably the largest thing, and it with
Speaker 1: certain companies was the stability of the industry pre pandemic.
Speaker 1: Our industry is recession proof, but it's not pandemic proof.
Speaker 1: So what we saw during the Great Financial Crisis back
Speaker 1: in o eight oh nine we saw we had so
Speaker 1: many people applying for jobs that there had to be
Speaker 1: layoffs and waiting lists. That has completely gone done A
Speaker 1: one eight. So it's very interesting to see in this
Speaker 1: life cycle, you know, from two thousand and eight to
Speaker 1: two one it's uh, it's the complete opposite. But like
Speaker 1: I said, you had people lining down the block because
Speaker 1: you were able to do and and as you know,
Speaker 1: as we get into it there, as you continue to
Speaker 1: escalate through your years of longevity and tenure, you get
Speaker 1: paid more. But because of that flexibility, some people do
Speaker 1: have second jobs. And when the financial crisis happened, that's
Speaker 1: what we saw. A lot of people were retirees or
Speaker 1: people from you know, the finance sector. We're saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, I need a job. They are hiring, school
Speaker 1: buses aren't going away. I can do this job in
Speaker 1: the morning, in the afternoon, and then I could do
Speaker 1: what I need to do in the middle of the
Speaker 1: day and at night as well. So that was the
Speaker 1: attractiveness of the industry pre pandemic. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: you mentioned regulation, and we have high barriers to entry
Speaker 1: into space for a very good reason because you know,
Speaker 1: it's children and it's the same with daycare and childcare.
Speaker 1: But there's also this tension in childcare and daycare where
Speaker 1: the very the regulation of childcare facilities is extremely high,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the people who are in childcare itself,
Speaker 1: particularly teachers, aren't paid particularly well. Can you just give
Speaker 1: it a little more clarity out of sort of like
Speaker 1: what school bus driver pay grades looked like a normal time.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about the greater New York area, and
Speaker 1: for New York City, it's forty hours paid pay per week,
Speaker 1: and there's an average between twenty and twenty two dollars
Speaker 1: per hour. When you get outside to Long Island in Westchester,
Speaker 1: that average dips down to about eighteen dollars an hour.
Speaker 1: There are certain different you know, companies offer different packages.
Speaker 1: If you don't take benefits, then you can be offered
Speaker 1: a package as high as twenty five dollars an hour,
Speaker 1: but then you start to tail that you cut back
Speaker 1: on the number of hours that you're paid. So many
Speaker 1: times in Westchester, along Island and even upstate, you'll start
Speaker 1: to see a five hour guarantee or a six hour guarantee.
Speaker 1: And that's really the problem with our industry right now
Speaker 1: that really needs to be addressed is if you want
Speaker 1: to attract people, this has to be more of a
Speaker 1: full time job. That's something that the industry has really
Speaker 1: it's really shined a light on what's going on right
Speaker 1: now that no longer do people just want the twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars an hour for five hours a day. You
Speaker 1: need to give them a full day's paid work. The
Speaker 1: retire re section. That's kind of where that that marriage
Speaker 1: came from, because these retirees only wanted to work part
Speaker 1: time or quote unquote part time, and that's non existent
Speaker 1: as I said before, So you know, it runs the
Speaker 1: gamut between eighteen dollars and twenty two dollars. There's different
Speaker 1: types of school buses that we can get into a
Speaker 1: little bit longer of why other people aren't coming into
Speaker 1: this industry. As you mentioned before the Great Retirement. There's
Speaker 1: type A, which is minivans. These minivans transport special needs
Speaker 1: education children. And then there's type C, which is your
Speaker 1: conventional big school bus that you guys see on the
Speaker 1: road quite often and that transports the general education children.
Speaker 1: Could you may describe how the contracting system works in
Speaker 1: New York because I think not a lot of people
Speaker 1: will necessarily be familiar with it. But you know, if
Speaker 1: a district needs school bus drivers, how do they actually
Speaker 1: go about acquiring those or um, you know, striking a
Speaker 1: deal with a company that can provide them. So there's
Speaker 1: two different ways that this industry operates. There's the public
Speaker 1: sector and the private sector. So let's go micro to macro.
Speaker 1: New York City is a hundred percent privately contracted. New
Speaker 1: York State is sixty privately contracted. The nationwide is forty
Speaker 1: private contract privately contracted. So the majority of the majority
Speaker 1: of the nation is publicly contracted, but New York State
Speaker 1: is majority privately contracted. How you get a private contract
Speaker 1: or a public contract, so it works two ways. It's
Speaker 1: an RFP or an RFB, and RFP is a request
Speaker 1: for proposal and an RFB is a request for bid.
Speaker 1: The DIP prince between the two is very simple. And
Speaker 1: RFP has a select criteria of about ten agenda items
Speaker 1: that you have to master and you get scored based
Speaker 1: on that criteria. So it's safety, operational history, insurance, age
Speaker 1: of vehicle driver abstracts. It's it's a it's a select
Speaker 1: criteria so that you are you are the most fit
Speaker 1: and professional operation and obviously prices, of course one of
Speaker 1: the bigger ones. But there's there's a myriad of different
Speaker 1: things that you need to score the highest on to
Speaker 1: be selected as that vendor. And you are selected by
Speaker 1: a panel of about three people within the school district
Speaker 1: or the municipality, and they look at your entire proposal
Speaker 1: and they say, we deem this operator the most fit
Speaker 1: operationally financially, and we would like to go ahead with them.
Speaker 1: On the opposite side of that is what's called a
Speaker 1: request forbid. A request for bid is very simple. It
Speaker 1: is the lowest responsible bidder. So if you bid the
Speaker 1: lowest number, so long as that district of municipality goes
Speaker 1: in there and they say, okay, they have the facilities,
Speaker 1: they have the buses, they have the drivers there will
Speaker 1: go with them. It's very simple. A lot of the districts,
Speaker 1: the majority of the districts opt for an RFP because
Speaker 1: of all of the extra things that you have to
Speaker 1: put in there. Right, you know, you want a safe, reliable,
Speaker 1: good company, You want newer buses on the road. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people in their RFPs they'll put in
Speaker 1: we're gonna promise to purchase forty brand new vehicles you know,
Speaker 1: if you do an RFB, you don't have to put
Speaker 1: in the age of your fleet. Now, if you're a
Speaker 1: school district, then you don't want to have fifteen year
Speaker 1: old buses, dirty diesel buses for every single bus on
Speaker 1: the road. No, when you look at that, and as
Speaker 1: when you're a board of education or superintendent and you're
Speaker 1: looking at these rfp s and RFPs, you have a
Speaker 1: fiduciary responsibility to put the safest, most reliable, and also
Speaker 1: environmentally friendly vehicles on the road. So many oftentimes they
Speaker 1: opt for an RFP rather than an RFPA. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you another question. You as a Logan bus company,
Speaker 1: your company largest NYC contractor, you have two thousand bus
Speaker 1: and NYC how do what is the market share of
Speaker 1: your of those two thousand buses in New York City?
Speaker 1: And how do market share decisions work? How can they
Speaker 1: change over time? To what degree do you compete with
Speaker 1: other operate fleet operators within that our New York City
Speaker 1: school bus contractors? So there's very little competition outside of
Speaker 1: the two bids that went on in two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: and two thousand fourteen as far as market share, where
Speaker 1: about twenty two to fluctuating on how many routes are
Speaker 1: created each year. And how it works is you you
Speaker 1: get you pick your routes at the beginning of each year,
Speaker 1: the d o E and OPT have to route each child,
Speaker 1: and you know, you have a certain of what's called
Speaker 1: restoration rights and you get restored your contract routes. But overall,
Speaker 1: with including pre K, there's about ten thousands school bus
Speaker 1: routes in New York City and we operate two thousand.
Speaker 1: So just you know, for easy context of the market. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as competition and how we grow and and
Speaker 1: and you know what, how we scale or things like that,
Speaker 1: this is an extremely difficult job. It's an extremely difficult industry,
Speaker 1: I should say job. Excuse me, uh, it's extremely extremely
Speaker 1: capital intensive. And a few of the things that are
Speaker 1: i'd call threats to the industry in terms of businesses
Speaker 1: staying in business are the cost of vehicles, the cost
Speaker 1: of real estate, and the cost of insurance. Obviously, because
Speaker 1: we are school buses transporting children, we have very high
Speaker 1: levels of insurance, and with high levels of insurance come
Speaker 1: high levels of litigation. So many school bus companies have
Speaker 1: gone out of business or they have was up shop
Speaker 1: because they could not afford to pay for these expenses.
Speaker 1: Vehicles are six figures. You know, brand new type C
Speaker 1: school bus costs about anywhere from a hundred to a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty grand, depending on which original equipment manufacturer
Speaker 1: you're coming with. And then, of course the other thing
Speaker 1: being who can pay the most for the same pool
Speaker 1: of people. We all operate in the five boroughs of
Speaker 1: New York City, and some of us have the same
Speaker 1: collective bargaining agreement with unions. Some of us have other unions.
Speaker 1: But when you are all operating in the same space
Speaker 1: and you're fighting for the same person, you have to
Speaker 1: get very creative and crafty on what you're willing to
Speaker 1: offer these people. So a lot of the smaller companies,
Speaker 1: you know, if I were to go and offer an
Speaker 1: extra five days paid off on top of the New
Speaker 1: York City five page leave a smaller company that operates
Speaker 1: a hundred or two hundred busses, it's gonna be very
Speaker 1: difficult for them to offer an additional five paid days
Speaker 1: off for a hundred people. That's going to really really
Speaker 1: handstring their operations. So that's where we see a lot
Speaker 1: of companies fold and consolidation of the industry out, whether
Speaker 1: it be acquisition or for the most part, it's just
Speaker 1: it's companies throwing in the towel and then the Department
Speaker 1: of Education distributing the work to the vendors. So this
Speaker 1: is something that I wanted to ask you based on
Speaker 1: your previous description of how the contracting process actually works.
Speaker 1: But if you're a school bus company, how do you
Speaker 1: actually make money in this business while providing a sort
Speaker 1: of economic rate to the people who are buying your services?
Speaker 1: Because I imagine the ceiling on running a school bus
Speaker 1: operation could in theory be almost limitless. You know, you
Speaker 1: could have totally brand new school buses because everyone would
Speaker 1: love to have their kids driven in a brand new vehicle.
Speaker 1: You could have the us possible school bus drivers, people
Speaker 1: with years and years of experience, because obviously parents would
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable with that. It feels like the cost
Speaker 1: could rapidly spiral out of control. But clearly people are
Speaker 1: in this industry. You have lots of companies competing for
Speaker 1: these contracts, So how are they actually making money and
Speaker 1: how do they sort of balance safety with the need
Speaker 1: for profit. So that's a great question, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a very difficult one. So here the couple of easy
Speaker 1: answers to that, and I say easy facetiously. But the
Speaker 1: ways that we maintain and mitigate exposure when you talk
Speaker 1: about being able to turn a profit is you have
Speaker 1: to stay on top of your insurance and your insurances
Speaker 1: and safety. So what I mean by that is accident
Speaker 1: courses to limit the number of vehicles a vehicular accidents
Speaker 1: you get into so that your order liability claims stay low.
Speaker 1: Workers compensation. We have such an extensive workers compensation program
Speaker 1: because as I'm sure you could imagine, I have two
Speaker 1: thousand buses employees, we have quite a bit of workers
Speaker 1: compensation claims. So to stay on top of that program,
Speaker 1: mitigate the workers compensation claims, mitigate the losses, return to
Speaker 1: work policies, things like that when you can, when you're
Speaker 1: able to control and mitigate those type of costs, that
Speaker 1: is way to turn profit. You know, you can't sacrifice safety, right,
Speaker 1: so you still have to put the best, latest and
Speaker 1: greatest vehicles on the road. But what you can do
Speaker 1: by that is if you have great credit and you
Speaker 1: build a grood company, you can leverage debt. So if
Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure that I pour the money
Speaker 1: in my company, back into labor and back into and
Speaker 1: I reinvest into my vehicles. I can, I can buy
Speaker 1: vehicles at an extremely large number of quantity, and I
Speaker 1: could have great rates to buy those vehicles. So that's
Speaker 1: a great way to leverage debt in our industry is
Speaker 1: that if you want to have a good, safe operation,
Speaker 1: you reinvest your money or you use the money that
Speaker 1: you have to debt to buy debt down on brand
Speaker 1: new vehicles. And then you know, as far as other things,
Speaker 1: it's a juggling act between the labor and the number
Speaker 1: of employees that you have to run your operation. You know,
Speaker 1: as far as efficiency wise, you really have to end
Speaker 1: like operational operational logistics. You have to take a really deep,
Speaker 1: deep dive and understanding your personnel. How many people, though
Speaker 1: I do I need to run dispatch to get out
Speaker 1: a hundred buses? How oh man, it's two? Okay, And
Speaker 1: that may seem like a lot, but at the very
Speaker 1: least you need one dispatcher for for every fifty buses.
Speaker 1: Think about that for a second. This person is responsible
Speaker 1: for GPS and answering phone calls and making sure that
Speaker 1: they can get the driver on the radio. So even
Speaker 1: fifty fifties a lot. But that's exactly it. So you
Speaker 1: really have to get down into the leeds, and it's
Speaker 1: it's more about you don't make money, you don't make
Speaker 1: more money on each round. You have to find streamlined
Speaker 1: operational efficiencies in order to make money make more money.
Speaker 1: So I think we've got a pretty good understanding of
Speaker 1: like how the market structure generally works in this space.
Speaker 1: So what don't we now address the so called the
Speaker 1: school bus driver shortage? So you talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about what looked like you said, this is a recession
Speaker 1: proof industry, but it's not a pandemic proof industry. You said,
Speaker 1: post GFC you had applications out the door because it
Speaker 1: was a stable very different today. Why do you talk
Speaker 1: us about here we are, it's December, what are the
Speaker 1: new stresses on the running of your business? And what
Speaker 1: are what are some of the overall numbers of how
Speaker 1: how things changed? Sure, so let's go back to March
Speaker 1: when the entire nation school bus school education system shutdown.
Speaker 1: Obviously we were low on the picking order, right, Respectfully,
Speaker 1: I completely understand that. But here's the problem. And as
Speaker 1: we say, you know, the school bus starts the education process,
Speaker 1: especially especially in minority neighborhoods and lower income neighborhoods where
Speaker 1: you see twice as many nearly twice as many people
Speaker 1: take the school bus to school in those neighborhoods to
Speaker 1: get their education. So we weren't being spoken to by
Speaker 1: the contract The contractors were not being spoken to by
Speaker 1: the school district. The school districts had a lot on
Speaker 1: their hands, municipalities had a lot on their hands. But
Speaker 1: we tried to explain to them, this industry is not
Speaker 1: just a lights which you don't turn it on and off.
Speaker 1: These are some of the most heavily regulated and highly
Speaker 1: licensed individuals in the state. You need to have a
Speaker 1: plan for us. They didn't have a plan for us.
Speaker 1: And what happened was you saw a lot of these
Speaker 1: CDL drivers say, you know, what the heck is going
Speaker 1: on with my job? What am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1: And a lot of the school districts and municipality said,
Speaker 1: we're not going to pay the school bus contractors because
Speaker 1: it would be seen as a gift of public funds. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not an attorney, I can't unpack that, but that
Speaker 1: was that was, you know, a full statement, and what
Speaker 1: we saw was a lot of these school bus drivers,
Speaker 1: as they mentioned before, that operating the same communities they
Speaker 1: live in, the communities they opt rate. They're very upset
Speaker 1: in the sense that they felt like they're you know,
Speaker 1: the school districts and the municipalities turned their backs on them.
Speaker 1: You know. For me, obviously, we tried to work with
Speaker 1: the unions to keep them paid for a certain period
Speaker 1: of time. We tried to keep their benefits for a
Speaker 1: couple of months and things like that. But when I
Speaker 1: am receiving zero revenue, I of course had to lay off,
Speaker 1: lay them off, and you know that keeps you up
Speaker 1: at night. But concurrently with all of that going on,
Speaker 1: you hear terrible, terrible stories that the transportation industry was
Speaker 1: the second deadliest job during COVID. Even in New York
Speaker 1: City alone, m t A experienced a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six deaths. Now, the m t A union, one of
Speaker 1: the m c A unions, is one of the school
Speaker 1: bus unions. They all speak to each other. So it
Speaker 1: became a very very difficult job. You were laid off
Speaker 1: the people who were working, which, by the way, school
Speaker 1: bus drivers and transit workers are considered essential employees. They
Speaker 1: never get the same respect. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: whether they should or not, but they should be at least,
Speaker 1: you know, acknowledge as essential employees. So you had a
Speaker 1: really bad perfect storm of you were laid off, you
Speaker 1: weren't getting paid, the contractors couldn't do anything, and you
Speaker 1: were hearing about these transportation deaths. And then you were
Speaker 1: expected to come back that September and you're expected to
Speaker 1: drive a school was filled with fifty unvaccinated children. Now,
Speaker 1: this industry is the median age of a school bus
Speaker 1: driver is fifty five years old. So this is a
Speaker 1: pretty old and I say that relatively, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty old workforce. There was there was quite some fear
Speaker 1: amongst a lot of people to come back to work.
Speaker 1: I'm talking back in September twenty now, quite a quite
Speaker 1: a lot of fear about people coming back to work
Speaker 1: transporting children that were unvaccinated. Despite all the measures that
Speaker 1: we took, whether it was mandating masks, we had, we
Speaker 1: had cleaning solutions to wipe down the buses, we lost
Speaker 1: quite a bit of workforce then because of the fear
Speaker 1: of unvaccinated children. So at the same time, during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: when school bus drivers weren't working. They still had their CDLs.
Speaker 1: What was the number one industry that boomed during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: truck trucking and delivery. So many drivers went to go
Speaker 1: work for Amazon and other delivery services because that was
Speaker 1: pandemic proof. That was a pandemic proof industry. In fact,
Speaker 1: it skyrocketed to ring the pandemic. So if you are
Speaker 1: a CDL driver holder, and Amazon warehouses and last mile
Speaker 1: services are popping up every day in a new neighborhood,
Speaker 1: whether it's Brooklyn, whether it's Rockaway, whether it's Staten Island,
Speaker 1: they have all of their bases covered in the five boroughs.
Speaker 1: You can walk in there with the CDL and your
Speaker 1: drug testing and all of your licenses still intact and say, hey,
Speaker 1: put me on the road immediately. So that further decimated
Speaker 1: our industry. Last year, if you remember, in September to June,
Speaker 1: many of the schools were remote learning, so it was
Speaker 1: a hybrid x. It was some days in school, some
Speaker 1: days out of school, and there were quite a bit
Speaker 1: of problems on how we're going to be paid for
Speaker 1: that and not from the school districts, And then that
Speaker 1: trickles down to quite a bit of problems on how
Speaker 1: you're going to pay your drivers. So how was the
Speaker 1: driver expected to only work three days out of the
Speaker 1: week or only work two days out of the week.
Speaker 1: Once again, that's strength that strike three, that that once
Speaker 1: again decimated the industry. So those are the three really
Speaker 1: big points from school from the school year on why
Speaker 1: we see today when they said in September, hey, we're
Speaker 1: going back to a d ready to go fully back
Speaker 1: in school, and the industry said, whoa hold on. You've
Speaker 1: been telling you guys for the last eighteen months there's
Speaker 1: gonna be an issue here. So two things here, is
Speaker 1: it possible to give like a rough estimate of how
Speaker 1: many drivers were lost because they were you know, slightly
Speaker 1: older retirees who are maybe worried about actually catching COVID
Speaker 1: versus people who needed money or found better alternatives in
Speaker 1: the form of Amazon and simply couldn't hang on to
Speaker 1: the school bus job. And then secondly, I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: the older generation of bus drivers probably isn't going to
Speaker 1: come back into the workforce. Um, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: But on that assumption, where do you start to look
Speaker 1: for new drivers? So the first part there was about
Speaker 1: depends nation in statewide, there was a fifteen driver shortage,
Speaker 1: so you lost you know, if it's the ten thousand
Speaker 1: in New York City, you lost two people in a
Speaker 1: New York City does a little bit better because of
Speaker 1: the things that I spoke about before the forty hours
Speaker 1: the union that that the health benefits and pension and
Speaker 1: things like that. But no, across the state and across
Speaker 1: the nation you saw about decline. And then to your
Speaker 1: second point, Yeah, it's a very very very scarce job
Speaker 1: market because there are no retirees and they're are no
Speaker 1: older workforce to be here. So some of the creative
Speaker 1: things that we've been doing is we're trying to you know,
Speaker 1: hire younger, trying to trying to hire people as a
Speaker 1: stepping stone. And you know, whether it be hey, drive
Speaker 1: a school bus for a couple of years before you
Speaker 1: get your Class A and go onto trucking, or drive
Speaker 1: a school bus before you you you do something bigger. Um,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been a challenge and we're still racking
Speaker 1: our brains. There's no right answer here. We're offering sign
Speaker 1: on bonuses, were increasing our pay something you mentioned before
Speaker 1: that is really big and something that the whole industry
Speaker 1: is taking about you know, right now inflation, you know,
Speaker 1: and we measured in our industry, but just by c
Speaker 1: p I right now CPI is outpacing e C I
Speaker 1: and e c I is the employer cost index. So
Speaker 1: if those increases are if your bottom up there, how
Speaker 1: are you expected to hire workforce? How you how am
Speaker 1: I expected to film my film My void if if
Speaker 1: inflation is outpacing the the employer uh costs index. So
Speaker 1: you know, we're really trying to get creative here and
Speaker 1: think of ways outside of the box to at ract
Speaker 1: new people. One of the things when I mentioned the
Speaker 1: younger workforce is once again trying to hit on that
Speaker 1: flexibility of hours. Hey, if you only want to do
Speaker 1: a PM route because you don't want to work in
Speaker 1: the morning, will take you. I was wondering on that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like artists, like any thought of like just
Speaker 1: like sort of the more classical gig worker types or
Speaker 1: people who don't want to make it a career but
Speaker 1: need a little extra money while they pursue their passion.
Speaker 1: Is that a possible Is that a possible future school
Speaker 1: bus driver? It is to a certain extent, But this
Speaker 1: goes back to the difficulty It takes and the longevity
Speaker 1: it takes to become a school bush. You know, you
Speaker 1: have to take five written tests, five written permit tests
Speaker 1: to pass. You have to take a you know, you
Speaker 1: have to learn about air breaks, you have to learn
Speaker 1: about pre inspections, you have to know about transmission and suspensions, uh,
Speaker 1: leaf springs. You know, I'm just throwing names out there, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to if you're a part
Speaker 1: time person, if you're developing an app, or if you're
Speaker 1: you're an accountant, or if you're doing something like that,
Speaker 1: but what are you going to learn about shock absorbers
Speaker 1: and brake systems? You know, it's a very difficult, difficult,
Speaker 1: cumbersome process. And then on top of that, you still
Speaker 1: have to get behind the road and pass your road
Speaker 1: test and you need training. It's not like you just
Speaker 1: get in this car and pass your d m V
Speaker 1: road tests. No, we do driver's head and then the
Speaker 1: same thing for school buses. So we're trying, we're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out ways for people to to think of
Speaker 1: like hey, we'll do split shifts, we'll do you know,
Speaker 1: medical positions and things like that. But no, it's become
Speaker 1: it's become very difficult so one of the things, um
Speaker 1: that's obviously happening right now, and I should just include
Speaker 1: our usual caveat, which is that we are recording this
Speaker 1: on December six. But clearly there are concerns over the
Speaker 1: omicron variant of COVID, and we are seeing some you know,
Speaker 1: additional steps to maybe not go back into full lockdowns.
Speaker 1: But people are talking about, you know, more vaccination requirements
Speaker 1: and perhaps more restrictions on the movement of people and
Speaker 1: things like that. How do you expect that to impact
Speaker 1: the school bus driver situation now? And are you worried
Speaker 1: that it's sort of I guess undoes some of your
Speaker 1: efforts when it comes to recruiting new drivers. Absolutely, it's
Speaker 1: extremely extremely im I am extremely extremely nervous, especially if
Speaker 1: you go into a remote option or if you do
Speaker 1: a full lockdown. In both of those scenarios, it's very
Speaker 1: hard to pay labor because if they're not going to
Speaker 1: pay the contractors for the days that you are remote,
Speaker 1: then the contractors can't pay labor. Then they're going to
Speaker 1: look for other industries where they can continue to work
Speaker 1: five days a week. You know, as we spoke about before,
Speaker 1: if you're only working three months nine months out of
Speaker 1: twelve months, and you have three months off being the
Speaker 1: summer and the HOID breaks. You know you're going to
Speaker 1: continue to further destroy the industry if you don't pay
Speaker 1: them for the time off during the remoteness. So all
Speaker 1: the efforts that we've had paying for training, we've been
Speaker 1: working with government to make the road tests and the
Speaker 1: regulatory process more efficient and eliminate some of the unneeded things,
Speaker 1: and all of these goal, the goodwill and the progress
Speaker 1: that we've built over the last four months a whole
Speaker 1: from September December would be destroyed because all of that uncertainty.
Speaker 1: Just like how the markets move with on the kron
Speaker 1: the job markets going to move if if they if
Speaker 1: they see the writing on the wall is that there's
Speaker 1: going to be a shutdown, They're going to look for
Speaker 1: businesses that do not shut down when school shutdown. So
Speaker 1: I want to get your take, UM. I think in
Speaker 1: the September Governor Hocoll announced these plans to ease the
Speaker 1: school bus driver shortage somewhat perhaps streamline the efficiency of
Speaker 1: the CDL system. Can you talk about have you seen
Speaker 1: any effect of those UM proposals and what more could
Speaker 1: the city or states or municipalities be doing to continue
Speaker 1: to ease some of the stress you're facing. That's a
Speaker 1: great question and that that's once again a lot to unpack,
Speaker 1: so let me try and address all of that. We
Speaker 1: worked with Governor Hopele's office there. They were great. Sometimes
Speaker 1: when you work with government, I'm sure you guys know this,
Speaker 1: they write down notes and then nothing comes of it
Speaker 1: with respectfully and it's art because it's difficult. They have
Speaker 1: to hear from every industry in every sector, and they
Speaker 1: don't know what is right what is wrong, and they
Speaker 1: take it with a grain of salt, but knock her
Speaker 1: off as they did great. So we had meetings and
Speaker 1: we had conference goals with them, and here are a
Speaker 1: couple of things that that that they did really that
Speaker 1: really helped our industry. As you guys remember, uh federal
Speaker 1: unemployment stimulus packages where people were staying home in New
Speaker 1: York State. They're making about nine hundred dollars a day,
Speaker 1: I believe, or maybe a little bit less than that.
Speaker 1: It didn't end until September six, by the way, trying
Speaker 1: to hire people when you were already making nine hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for September first rollout for schools. That was another
Speaker 1: very difficult task, right, you know, if you're already sitting
Speaker 1: home making nine an hour, why are you going to
Speaker 1: come in and drive a school bus at six am
Speaker 1: for you know, the same pay. So with that being said,
Speaker 1: when we spoke to the Governor's office, we explained to
Speaker 1: them that it's very difficult to have people come in
Speaker 1: the door when we have all of our people who
Speaker 1: are still sitting home on unemployment and the benefits haven't exhausted,
Speaker 1: but we know that there's a lot more CDL people.
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest things that she did is
Speaker 1: she released a survey with about three thousand responses of
Speaker 1: CDL workers that were on the sidelines, will call it
Speaker 1: on unemployment to come back to work. And she said, hey,
Speaker 1: look at your local school buses. They're offering sign on bonuses,
Speaker 1: they have new pay packages. Are you interested in driving
Speaker 1: for a district or for a private contractor? And the
Speaker 1: responses were overwhelming. There was three thousand responses, and they
Speaker 1: released the data to all of us and we were
Speaker 1: able to call these people and get them pluck them
Speaker 1: off the list to come work for us. That was
Speaker 1: extremely extremely helpful. The other thing that was extremely helpful.
Speaker 1: Has we've spoken about quite a bit is the time
Speaker 1: it takes to become a driver. It takes anywhere between
Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty two business days to become a driver.
Speaker 1: Now that's very, very difficult, and I should say it
Speaker 1: could take even longer than that. If you need a
Speaker 1: job immediately, the last thing that you want to do
Speaker 1: is wait three, four or five weeks to get put
Speaker 1: on the road unpaid. So that's always been a problem
Speaker 1: with our industry. And the Governor's office recognized that and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, that's that's not right, that's that's really tough.
Speaker 1: So what they did is they suspended the two weeks
Speaker 1: between the written tests and the road test. That if
Speaker 1: you were ready, if you passed all of your written
Speaker 1: permit tests and you were ready for a road test,
Speaker 1: you could schedule that immediately and you could get on
Speaker 1: the road. Now, another thing like any other industry, And
Speaker 1: as you alluded to at the beginning of this podcast,
Speaker 1: you know, government was short staff during the pandemic also,
Speaker 1: so d m V had less people working the road tests.
Speaker 1: So so times you can have all of your licenses
Speaker 1: in place, your drug testing, fingerprinting, everything done and then
Speaker 1: it would still take four weeks to schedule yourself a
Speaker 1: road test. Now, when they heard that, they said, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's really terrible because not only did you
Speaker 1: take the three weeks to get all of your things
Speaker 1: done to become a driver, but now you have to
Speaker 1: wait on the government four weeks to take your road
Speaker 1: test to become licensed. So she put on more DMV
Speaker 1: inspectors and and and test instructors, and that really helped
Speaker 1: us as well. So after that happened, we certainly saw
Speaker 1: a good number of people come into this industry and
Speaker 1: we were very very thankful that we had an ear
Speaker 1: because the previous administration, I'm not going to get political, Uh,
Speaker 1: the previous administration completely tuned us out. So this kind
Speaker 1: of leads into a slightly philosophical question that I want
Speaker 1: to ask you. But you know, if if we all
Speaker 1: decide that school bus drivers are are a value part
Speaker 1: of the labor force, essential workers, what are the chances
Speaker 1: that governments actually start paying them more or you know,
Speaker 1: start paying more for contracts and then the contractors can
Speaker 1: actually pay school bus drivers more. Like is that the
Speaker 1: natural solution to this is just to pay them more?
Speaker 1: And if so, why isn't that happening, or what are
Speaker 1: the obstacles to that happening. I think that's a loaded question. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's okay, No, it's great. I understand you're saying. I
Speaker 1: think it's difficult. I think get in good faith. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I know that. I'll say this though. The
Speaker 1: public companies, the public school districts, excuse me, do quite
Speaker 1: often pay more than the private contractors to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: and they're still having an extremely difficult job of hiring people.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if money is just the answer.
Speaker 1: And I think it's because of the type of job
Speaker 1: it is. And I think that the workforce right now
Speaker 1: because there are other jobs out there that and you
Speaker 1: you know, you said that else the other thing at
Speaker 1: the beginning. I think that the other jobs out there
Speaker 1: are more enticing to the new workforce. I don't think
Speaker 1: people want to wake up at five o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning and hop on a school bus and transport unvaccinated
Speaker 1: children right now. I think that that looks like a
Speaker 1: difficult job for them when they can work for Amazon
Speaker 1: or work for other delivery companies and they can wake
Speaker 1: up at eight o'clock, nine o'clock. Um. Obviously, there's some
Speaker 1: other things with the federal with the New York state
Speaker 1: marijuana legislation in that pass that we lost some of
Speaker 1: our people as well. You know, not to speak on Amazon,
Speaker 1: but Amazon doesn't you know, in delivery services, they don't
Speaker 1: drug test. Obviously, school buses, of course we're going to
Speaker 1: drug test. It's we're governed by the Federal Motor Clearing
Speaker 1: Safety Administration and it's not federally regulated, so they have
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're still not smoking marijuana. So
Speaker 1: I think you lost people there as well. The younger
Speaker 1: work for is going to tail off to more jobs
Speaker 1: that do not drug test to a certain extent. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure it's just pay. Obviously, pay
Speaker 1: needs needs to needs to be looked at. And let
Speaker 1: me just one more question on pay though, and all
Speaker 1: your other points make a lot of sense. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, a company like Amazon, though, like they could
Speaker 1: announce tomorrow that every one of their um, every one
Speaker 1: of their warehouse and logistics workers get to two dollars
Speaker 1: more proper. I don't know if they would, but obviously
Speaker 1: they could do that unilaterally. To what extent are your
Speaker 1: revenues fixed? And how long did the contracts last with
Speaker 1: the municipalities, and what kind of flexibility is there in
Speaker 1: terms of repricing those contracts from your perspective, as the
Speaker 1: labor market reprices. So the contracts are extremely fixed. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, you by New York State education law,
Speaker 1: a contract can go no longer than five years. So
Speaker 1: five year extension is the is the maximum. And what
Speaker 1: would happen if you wanted to give our industry, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to give a two dollar raise, you have
Speaker 1: to go what we call quote unquote go out to bid.
Speaker 1: So what go out to bid means is you, you know,
Speaker 1: you tell the municipality the contract numbers no longer work.
Speaker 1: We would like to go out to bid and try
Speaker 1: and get our numbers. And then you you, you go out,
Speaker 1: you put pen to paper and you put in a
Speaker 1: new number. Now, obviously you know the contract. The school
Speaker 1: districts look at all the bids that come in. They
Speaker 1: once again have to find the safest, most reliable, fiscally
Speaker 1: responsible bus company. But but you know that's the competition.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times, I certainly do think you
Speaker 1: see more activity in the bid space now more than ever.
Speaker 1: So sure, and I think that that's where this industry
Speaker 1: is going. Is that you'll continue to see and it's
Speaker 1: healthy competition. But there is still very extremely uh, there
Speaker 1: is still huge barriers to entry for any new existing
Speaker 1: bus company to come in. But that's what's going to
Speaker 1: have to happen. Contractors are going to have to bid
Speaker 1: out their work and get their numbers up and then
Speaker 1: enforced that of course, must go back down to giving
Speaker 1: increases to labor. One other thing I'll say, by the way,
Speaker 1: and some of the other contractors will get mad at
Speaker 1: me for saying this, but I already do it. So
Speaker 1: I'll say here all the things you're not supposed to say.
Speaker 1: It has to be an eight hour job. It can't
Speaker 1: be five hours, you can't be six hours. The retiree
Speaker 1: pipeline is no longer there. You have if you're only
Speaker 1: working ten months out of the twelve months, you have
Speaker 1: to give them the full eight hour job so that
Speaker 1: people can see it as a forty hour work week
Speaker 1: and a full time job. If you when you start
Speaker 1: to get to those levels, I think you'll see even
Speaker 1: more people come into this industry. It's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: because we're told over and over again by other types
Speaker 1: of employers that the younger workforce is looking for flexibility,
Speaker 1: and you know, they want to be able to work
Speaker 1: from home or they want to be able to dictate
Speaker 1: their own working hours. But you're sort of advocating going
Speaker 1: in the office directions. Well, unfortunately for us, we don't
Speaker 1: have that flexibility. Right school buses operate at six in
Speaker 1: the morning and two in the afternoon, So whoever wants
Speaker 1: to come into the industry, it's the school bell times
Speaker 1: aren't going to change. So let me just ask you
Speaker 1: one last question before we go. So right now, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that strikes me about school buses
Speaker 1: and schools in general, and I mentioned this in the intros,
Speaker 1: it's one of the most clear ways that parents are
Speaker 1: people interact with their government, especially if their kids are
Speaker 1: in public school. Um, but it's a clear it's a
Speaker 1: service that people expect. What is the quality of service
Speaker 1: right now? Have there are the fewer routes being run?
Speaker 1: Have you to consolidate routes? Do parents need to take
Speaker 1: their kids further from their front door to find a
Speaker 1: bus route? Like? What is the current level of adjustment
Speaker 1: that's been required because of the difficulty and high Sure,
Speaker 1: So the contractors and municipalities and school districts have really
Speaker 1: worked together well. But there is still some pain points
Speaker 1: that are being filled. Uh. There are certainly less routes
Speaker 1: being run what will we'll call them, uh, multiple routes
Speaker 1: being ran on the same bus. You know that some kids,
Speaker 1: some kids are are not taking the bus any longer.
Speaker 1: So you have that flexibility. But say you have a
Speaker 1: middle school on a high school. One of the bell
Speaker 1: times is eight o'clock, the other one is eight thirty.
Speaker 1: You'll put both of those groups of kids on the
Speaker 1: same bus and you'll do that route back to back.
Speaker 1: So that consolidation of route has been helpful. Now the
Speaker 1: only reason you're able to do that is because it's
Speaker 1: not at full capacity. But some of the times the
Speaker 1: routes still do run late. Um. You do not have
Speaker 1: that flexibility on special education routes. Special education routes they
Speaker 1: go all over and you can't double up what I'll
Speaker 1: called double putting two routes on one. So you know,
Speaker 1: other things are Obviously home to school is the most
Speaker 1: important thing. The school bus starts the education process. So
Speaker 1: we've worked with the athletics departments and the athletic conferences
Speaker 1: in the state to explain. You know, hey, we have
Speaker 1: to make sure that we do our routes, get the
Speaker 1: kids back home from school, and then we'll do the athletics.
Speaker 1: So whereas athletics used to start at three o'clock three thirty,
Speaker 1: they're starting at four o'clock now, and that's been a
Speaker 1: big help because, um, you know, it's one of the
Speaker 1: things that people understand, understand, it's one of the few
Speaker 1: things that even the parents understand. You know, it's more important.
Speaker 1: It's more important to get the kids home from school
Speaker 1: right now than to get the kids to to practice, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I play I too, season athlete. I
Speaker 1: completely understand. It stinks. It's a very unfortunate situation right now,
Speaker 1: but that's the type of creativity we need to get
Speaker 1: everybody to and from school right now. Well, Corey, that
Speaker 1: was fantastic. I learned a lot from that. Coremere ahead
Speaker 1: of the Logan Bus Company. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on odd Locks. Thank you both very much. This
Speaker 1: was great. Yeah, it's so good. Thank you, Tracy. I
Speaker 1: really like that episode. And you know, I like all
Speaker 1: of our episodes where we go like deep into something.
Speaker 1: But now I kind of want to do more things
Speaker 1: related to public sector provisioning because it's like it's a
Speaker 1: whole different world, or thinking about business reality is and
Speaker 1: things like how ur fps are done and r f
Speaker 1: b s and all that stuff and listening to Corey
Speaker 1: explaining all is U super educational. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: I think it fits in with the broader theme of
Speaker 1: Outlots over the past year or so, which has been
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, we're talking supply chains, We're
Speaker 1: talking all these invisible processes that you don't normally think
Speaker 1: about and suddenly in one you actually have to think
Speaker 1: about them. And that you know, includes things like where
Speaker 1: do school bus drivers come from? And where do we
Speaker 1: get more of them when an entire generation of older
Speaker 1: driver decides that it's not really worth the time or
Speaker 1: the risk anymore. The other thing, and you know, thinking
Speaker 1: about future Odd Lots episodes is like the Amazon effect
Speaker 1: on the labor market overall, because I really think like
Speaker 1: that's its own fascinating story essentially, Like you can make
Speaker 1: the argument like Jeff Bezos, but did he returned? He's
Speaker 1: not the CEO. Whoever the CEO of Amazon is at
Speaker 1: any given moment, is like our de facto minimum wage
Speaker 1: center right now in America because there's so many warehouses
Speaker 1: all over the country. They have such a large footprint,
Speaker 1: and as soon as they set up shop in an area,
Speaker 1: as Corey said, like for a lot of his employees,
Speaker 1: it may just make more sense to work at Amazon.
Speaker 1: And when you know, I didn't think about it. You know,
Speaker 1: when you think about the conditions of last September, especially
Speaker 1: before the vaccine, You're on a bus getting up on
Speaker 1: you know, bus full of unvaccinated children, your school bus drivers, uh,
Speaker 1: typically on the older end. And suddenly the just competition
Speaker 1: from other areas. You can see why even pay us side,
Speaker 1: you could see why other other types of job has
Speaker 1: become more appealing. And then you have this veheman Amazon
Speaker 1: that just growing and growing and growing. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: mean minimum wage that is a great way to put it.
Speaker 1: And you kind of wonder what the response from the
Speaker 1: government is going to be, right because you think of Amazon,
Speaker 1: and normally people think about it in the context of
Speaker 1: taking potential workers away from private businesses or crowding out
Speaker 1: some sort of private business, and you don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: about it crowding out public services. But in this particular case,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what what it's been doing. Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 1: And you know, I hadn't thought like his point about
Speaker 1: hybrid two days on, three days off, and how maybe
Speaker 1: that might have worked for the teachers, but it was
Speaker 1: very unrealistic for school bus drivers like slash all their routes,
Speaker 1: and there very so many interesting things like yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess it just goes back to so many interesting things
Speaker 1: I had never thought about. I mean, part of me
Speaker 1: also just continues to be stunned by like the lack
Speaker 1: of a social safety net or job security in the States,
Speaker 1: and the fact that school bus drivers seem to be
Speaker 1: at will employees, and even though they might have expected
Speaker 1: to drive school buses every day for a school year,
Speaker 1: the pandemic happens and suddenly it's like, oh no, we
Speaker 1: don't need you anymore, so goodbye, you're out of work.
Speaker 1: That's kind of stunning and unfortunately different to the way
Speaker 1: some other countries would do this. Yeah. Pretty uh, pretty
Speaker 1: fascinating lens into how things actually work. All right, should
Speaker 1: we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has
Speaker 1: been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway. And
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: The Stalwart. Follow our producer Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson.
Speaker 1: Follow the Bloomberg head of podcast Francesco Leavi at Francesca Today,
Speaker 1: and check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg under
Speaker 1: the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening to