With Teamsters Support, New Law Provides Economic Security to Kansas Bus Workers

https://teamster.org/2024/05/with-teamsters-support-new-law-provides-economic-security-to-kansas-bus-workers/

2024.05.16

Legislation Creates Path for Bus Workers to Access Unemployment During School Closures

Press Contact: Daniel Moskowitz Phone: (770) 262-4971 Email: Dmoskowitz@teamster.org

(TOPEKA, Kan.) – Teamsters Local 696 commends Governor Laura Kelly (D) for signing HB 2570, legislation that creates a path to unemployment for private sector bus workers in Kansas. This new law will alleviate the financial hardships bus workers face when their place of employment is closed.

“This victory took persistence, hard work, and hundreds of school bus drivers over the course of several years attending lobby days in Topeka and making their voices heard,” said Matt Hall, Secretary-Treasurer and Political Coordinator for Local 696. “Thank you to Rep. Sean Tarwater for sponsoring this much-needed amendment, all of the state legislators who voted for it, and Governor Kelly for making it law. This is a step in the right direction, but we will keep fighting to ensure Kansas bus workers have the benefits and protections they deserve.”

For more than a decade, Kansas Teamsters and bus workers lobbied members of the state legislature to ensure bus workers had access to unemployment benefits when school is not in session. When workers in other industries are out of work, they have access to unemployment benefits and this law creates a critical path for bus workers to access those same benefits.

Teamsters Local 696 represents workers in a wide variety of industries throughout Northern Kansas, including UPS workers, public employees, school bus drivers, sanitation workers, and more. For more information, go to teamsters696.com.