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Bus firm settles
claim by AIDS activists
David B.
Caruso, Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA - A bus company that
offered a discount charter to a
group of AIDS activists, only to
have one of its drivers pull to the
side of the road and refuse to
continue because he "didn't want to
catch anything," settled a
discrimination complaint Friday.
Krapf Bus Companies
agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to
each of the 10 passengers, retrain its
staff and post a nondiscrimination
policy on every charter bus, according
to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania,
which filed the complaint.
"Certainly what the driver did was not
the company's policy," said Krapf
attorney Randy Schauer.
The AIDS activist group
ACT UP had chartered the bus last summer
to take activists to a legislative
hearing in Harrisburg, where they had
hoped to speak against a state
regulation to create a state database
containing the names of people who test
positive for HIV.
AIDS
Law Project's executive director, Ronda
Goldfein, said it took 90 minutes of
roadside negotiations between an ACT UP
official and a bus company dispatcher to
persuade the driver to continue. The
group arrived in Harrisburg late and
missed part of the meeting, she said.
Goldfein said the
activists were pleased with the
settlement. She noted that Krapf
officials had initially given ACT UP a
discount fare available to community
groups, and had seemed pleased to have
them. |
