Originally posted here

After working without a contract since before Katrina, almost every city bus driver called in sick Friday morning, stranding commuters who were left waiting in the rain.

By Leslie Williams - The Times-Picayune, May 4, 2007.

Of the 65 Regional Transit Authority bus drivers and streetcar operators that were supposed to show up for work at 9 a.m. Friday, 61 called in sick, stranding thousands of passengers who use the public transit system in New Orleans to get to work and others who take to it to the Fair Ground to play a Jazzfest.

"The sick out came as a surprise," Rosalind Blanco Cook, an RTA spokeswoman said shortly after the blue Friday began. "The president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Joseph Prieur, and management are meeting now to see what can be done to get full service back on the street as soon as possible."

The union has complained about wages, she said.

City buses and streetcars transported about 14,000 people over the three-day weekend to and from Jazzfest, but it's not clear what impact the sick out will have today, she said, because it's not clear how long this will last.