Three drivers for the Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS), Georgetown’s shuttle bus system, condemned the university’s proposed plan to transfer drivers to a third party that would reduce employee benefits at an Oct. 24 panel.

The GUTS drivers criticized the university administration’s communication with employees and argued the plan would harm the Georgetown community and the drivers’ families. The Georgetown Coalition for Workers’ Rights (GCWR), a student organization that advocates for labor issues on campus, hosted the event to highlight the lives of individual drivers who would be impacted. 

Noel Tiongson, a GUTS driver since 2001, said Georgetown and Chief Operating Officer (COO) David Green’s approach to subcontracting the drivers is unfair to the drivers because it lacks transparency.

“He didn’t even seem to really regard us as substantially important enough to at least be approached and really notified,” Tiongson said at the event. “It goes against my experience with Georgetown promoting the notion of cura personalis. We’ve always had this belief that the students that attend the university are supposed to project their learning to the greater world.”

The proposed plan, which The Hoya initially reported in September, would subcontract GUTS drivers with the private company Abe’s Transportation. GUTS drivers would no longer be directly employed by the university and lose access to most university benefits, including the university’s health insurance and retirement packages. The university has not yet formally announced if it will implement the plan.

Micaeli Dym (SFS ’26), one of the event’s organizers and GCWR member, said the panel aimed to raise awareness for how the university’s subcontracting plan would affect drivers. 

“The Coalition for Workers’ Rights, the community as a whole and the workers wanted to spotlight the stories and the experiences that workers have had over their up to 30 years of service and also hear personally how this change is impacting their daily lives,” Dym told The Hoya. “It will impact their lives, their family members, their children and their plans for the future.”

“I think highlighting and spotlighting those most affected by these changes is really important in making sure that their voices and their needs and demands come through in negotiations with the university and in making sure the university honors those demands,” Dym added.

The panel came one day after Georgetown’s Advisory Committee on Business Practices (ACBP) — a group of students, faculty and administrators that consult the office of the university president on the ethics of the university’s business and labor policies — advised the office of the president against subcontracting, saying the conversion to a new fleet of buses would pose a greater financial burden to the university than current driver wages.

Dym said the committee’s decision is a testament to the plan’s mistreatment of university employees because it violates Georgetown’s Just Employment Policy, a commitment to fair and competitive compensation for full-time university employees grounded in Georgetown’s Jesuit values.

“The fact that this Georgetown board even saw the violations of the Just Employment Policy that were happening in the case of the GUTS drivers being subcontracted and made this recommendation, I think, is really big,” Dym said.

The university’s plan would force drivers to either shift to an Abe’s Transportation subcontract or move to a different university position, many of which pay less. Drivers have cited concerns over losing access to the university’s expansive health care and retirement benefits, saying they are uncertain about their future.

A university spokesperson previously said Abe’s Transportation will offer “comparable compensation and benefits” to affected drivers.

Michael Fleming, a GUTS driver of seven years, said he hopes he can continue to work for Georgetown.

“When I wake up in the morning, I want to come to Georgetown,” Fleming said at the event. “I want to see you guys. I want to see everybody. I want to get my laughs.”

In an email response to a Sept. 19 petition circulated by GCWR opposing the plan, Green said the university would move ahead with the plan, citing university financial constraints and a Washington, D.C. law requiring private bus fleets to convert to 50% low-or-zero-emission buses by 2030 and 100% by 2045. A university spokesperson previously said remaining in compliance with the law without moving to a third-party vendor would cost the university $60 million.

Dym said GCWR’s work to protect drivers and other workers is far from over. 

“It doesn’t stop. We have to use this as a reason to keep pushing and keep the pressure on David Green because this recommendation was given directly to his office,” Dym said. “We are all what makes Georgetown and what makes the Georgetown community, and it’s the administration that’s trying to break apart these beautiful bonds that Georgetown’s created.”

Fleming said driving for GUTS is a deeply meaningful job. 

“I know y’all probably got some friends who got a degree working over here and that they’re like ‘Oh, hate it so much’,” Fleming said. “I mean, it’s nothing like having that. When you have a job that you like coming to every single day, there’s nothing like it, nothing.”

Ajani Stella contributed to reporting.