Between bus runs Wednesday, Stan Rebackoff sat in his heat-up, rusty GMC van parked in the Kohl's parking lot in Bedford Hills. He had a pencil and pages filled with wage calculations.

He was in the driver's seat. But not for long.

Yesterday at presstime, Roy Barnes, attorney for Teamsters Local Union 456, said the Bedford Central School District's private bus drivers who went on a two-day wildcat strike last week would be shut out from the negotiating table.

"You can't have people who participated in a wildcat strike negotiating an agreement," Mr. Barnes said. "What sense does that make?"

Mr. Rebackoff, the shop steward who helped lead the walkout last Thursday against the Long-Island based bus company, Baumann & Sons, said that he and three other drivers who have been part of the negotiations all along, were escorted off the Teamster property in

Elmsford yesterday as they made their way to a scheduled meeting with Baumann & Sons.

"Right now, the fight is not with Baumann, it's with the union," Mr. Rebackoff said. "We're asking Baumann not to negotiate behind our back."

Mr. Rebackoff added that the drivers have no intentions of going on strike again.

Ninety-one workers, responsible for the transportation of most of the district's students, remain without a contract. They went back to work on Monday, Sept. 30 alter a strike that nearly paralyzed the schools. III will remains on several fronts.

"We didn't want to strike. We bent over till we couldn't bend anymore, and they turned us down," said Mr. Rebackoff.

Using the van's passenger seat as a desk, Bob Versacci, the assistant shop steward, said Wednesday: "We're not going to be pushed around and shoved around and have something shoved down our throat," he said. "That's not going to be acceptable to the membership and their families. 11 everyone else can make a decent wage then why can't we? And for some reason, why this Bedford yard is being singled out and being made the scapegoat and (owner Ronald Baumann) is playing hardball with us l can't figure that out."

For its part, Baumann insists it has been negotiating in good faith all along.

"Here's something I've learned: You can't negotiate through the newspaper," said Marc Portnoy, contract negotiator for Baumann. "You can only negotiate at the table."

Asked to address the drivers' main beef regarding parity with Baumann drivers in neighboring school districts, Mr. Portnoy said, "When you look at the overall costs of various bus contracts in the area, they're better in some places, they're worse in some places, they're in between in some places. It's very complex.

"There's a lot of variables," he said, ^"and the fact of the matter is nothing changes overnight. Things change over time."

Mr. Barnes, the Teamsters' attorney, said yesterday the union has installed a new negotiating team, "and we're very close to settling this matter."

Last weekend, to lure the drivers back to work, Baumann agreed to drop a lawsuit it filed last week against each striking driver. The suit accused them of interfering with the company's contractual obligations with Bedford Central School District and sought monetary damages from each of the 70 drivers who walked out.

The strike left 4,250 public school and 750 private school students without bus transportation. Traffic was backed up at Bedford Central schools as parents were left to shuttle their children themselves. Many parents decided to skip work entirely.

Last Friday afternoon, Superintendent of Schools Bruce Dennis successfully (??????) urged the picketing drivers to return to work. ***

*** This is not true. I was present when Dennis showed up in the parking lot , begging hat in hand to speak with the Drivers. Pompous windbag that he is, no one is surprised he took credit for ending the strike. However he had noting to do with it. It was the committee leadership and the dynamics that were created early in the morning after discussion with Tom Turner that the drivers that ended the strike (AS PLANNED)-JPG

The alternative was the district would be forced to make arrangements to hire other drivers, and that could have resulted in the union workers losing their jobs.

"Clearly my preference was to have them go back," said Dr. Dennis. "The kids like these drivers. Our families trust them. They've done a good job. They are hard-working men and women who want to earn a living.

"I told them I would take no position in their negotiation," Dr. Dennis said. "Their issues are with Baumann. All l wanted to do was to make sure the^, parties were at the table and they continue to negotiate because I felt that was where the solution was to be found."

The strike was not supported by the drivers' union, Teamsters Local 456, which represents 91 Bedford Central drivers, bus monitors and mechanics who have been working without a contract since June. The drivers, who pay the union $4.50 a week, allege that the union went behind their backs in late August and signed off on a deal that the workers had rejected.

This week, the drivers called the National Labor Relations Board, the independent Federal agency created to enforce the National Labor Relations Act.

"We're waiting for the forms to be sent to us so we can start the process of decertification against local 456," said Mr. Versacci. "We also called the Teamsters International in Washington, and they're supposed to be assigning us a New York representative to either work for us or put pressure on Local 456."

But that may not be soon enough, since local 456 has decided to handle the matter the way it wishes - regardless that the Bedford drivers voted to seek an end to the relationship.

Mr. Versacci said Local 456 has "done nothing to help us, only to hurt us."

"That is the truth," said Mr. Rebackoff. "Did you ever hear of a union that never once put in an offer for you? They've never once made a proposal for us. Everything that we've done we've done ourselves.

The widespread news generated by the strike has resulted in several other unions showing interest in representing the workers, Mr. Rebackoff said.

He said there is no truth to the rumors that the drivers plan on striking again anytime soon.

"A lot of rumors," he said on Wednesday. "Like that we're walking out again on Friday"

"There's no truth to that rumor," said Mr. Versacci. "There's a lot of non-truths going around."*** Including those by Dennis

The drivers reiterated that yesterday, even after they were escorted off the Teamster property by what they described as private detectives.

The Bedford drivers are comprised of some retirees. But Mr. Rebackoff said most are parents who serve as their families' sole wage owners. Drivers make on average about $20,000 a year, he said.

At issue, compared with Ossining, Yorktown and New Canaan, Conn. - districts in which Baumann also provides bus service - the Bedford drivers say they get a bad deal from Baumann.

"At the most basic level, all we are asking is parity with the company's Yorktown operation," said Mr. Rebackoff. "Those drivers have better salaries, better health benefits and are guaranteed 42 weeks of pay each year. Baumann's final offer didn't even come close to what Yorktown drivers are getting."

Yorktown drivers get $17 an hour, he said. When the contract ended June 30, all the Bedford drivers were at top pay, $15.03, he said.

Yorktown drivers get a 42-week guarantee, meaning they get paid for 210 days of work. Bedford drivers are guaranteed only 183 days, Mr. Rebackoff said.

"Yorktown has a 401K plan," he said. "We don't."

For family health coverage, he said he was told by Baumann the plan costs $9,500 a year. The driver pays $6,500 of that.

"That's a lot of money," Mr. Rebackoff said. "We're asking theta to help lower the cost."

Baumann currently pays 70 percent to 90 percent of the health policy costs as the contract continues, but that's only for the single-person plan, he said. Most drivers require the family plan, he said, so they have to pay 68 percent of their health insurance policies.

In a statement to union members, Teamsters business manager Bernard Doyle last Wednesday said Baumann had already agreed to an increase in drivers' wages in the first year of the contract from 4 percent to 9 percent, .With the majority of drivers receiving a 7 percent raise."

Mr. Rebackoff said in the first year of Baumann's proposed contact only seven workers would get a 9 percent raise; 11 drivers would get 6 to 7 percent raises; and 60 drivers would get a 4 percent raise. The drivers want the higher wage scale to kick-in sooner than Baumann offered.

"(Ron Baumann) structured his proposal around the seniority list," he said. "He's very shrewd. He's saving lots and lots of money."

The drivers say Baumanns final offer would have raised starting wages by 50 cents an hour, but would have reduced guaranteed weekly hours from 30 to 25. The net result they say, is a loss of $60.45 a week.

"Basically, the bottom line is, what we want is what's fair and equal," said Mr. Versacci. "Parity, better benefits We're not asking for any more than the other yards have, or other surrounding bus companies in the area. We're not asking for the moon."

In the meantime, Dr. Dennis said district officials can only encourage the sides to meet and resolve their differences.

But what if the drivers strike again? "The community has gotten a dose of this, and we have procedures in place to move back into action," Dr. Dennis said. "It's certainly not my goal. My goal is to fulfill my commitment to keep the parties at the table Obviously, we have to prepare for other contingencies."

Dr. Dennis said he made it clear to the drivers that if they strike again the district will move to insure there's transportation for the students - with the current drivers or without  them. *** The drivers knew this man would throw us in  a lake full of crocodiles if it suited his purposes.

Under a new five-year contract with Baumann, the district is paying the company $3.2 million a year for providing 61 buses.