After more than four decades behind the wheel for the Portage la Prairie School Division, retired school bus driver Bonnie Munro says she feels forgotten.

Munro, who started driving in 1981 and retired in June 2024, recently learned she would not receive retroactive pay included in the new CUPE 2085 contract covering educational assistants, clerical staff, custodians, and bus drivers. The contract, ratified earlier this year, includes back pay for current members dating to January 2022, but excludes anyone who has since retired or left the division.

“I put 43 years in. I loved my job, I loved the kids,” said Munro. “But it doesn’t seem fair that someone who’s still working gets that money, and just because it was time for me to retire, I won’t get it.”

Munro says she and other retired drivers had worked for years without a contract, trusting that retroactive pay would come once a new agreement was reached.

“Everyone of us who quit or retired or moved on had got back pay before and we thought we would again, we worked in good faith, knowing a deal would someday be reached. We didn't strike. There was precedent from the past, and morale had been declining with no deal in place for years.”

Former members say they were used as “bargaining tools”

Other former CUPE 2085 members have voiced frustration as well, saying both the division and the union should have done more to ensure retirees and those who had moved on were included in the new deal.

In a written statement from one of the group’s organizers, they said the issue has left many feeling devalued.

“All of us were working without a contract in good faith that a contract would one day be ratified and we would all get what was owing to us,” the statement reads. “CUPE, the division office, and all the trustees were sitting around that table, and they used us, former members, as a bargaining tool and leverage to give current members this big raise.”

The group says similar divisions have recently handled things differently as well, and other ratified contracts have paid the former members back pay.

Calls for accountability

Munro says she sent her concerns to the school division and the union, but the responses offered no help, stating that the deal is done and there is nothing they can do about it, even if they wanted to. The former driver felt they put the blame solely on the current membership and wondered why no retroactive pay for former members would even be a part of the negotiations to begin with. 

"We all worked together those years. Of course, the current membership will want their money, but former members aren't bargaining chips for a new agreement."

She adds that she and others are still exploring options for possible action, though they’re unsure what can be done.

“There’s disappointment with the union too,” said Munro. “All those years, we paid union dues thinking they would step up for us when this came around, and they didn’t. The union was not there for former members for sure.”

Munro isn't expecting much but still hopes the division will reconsider despite the contract being a legal agreement.

“I just wish the division would step up and be the school division I started working for 43 years ago,” Munro added.