WSD bus drivers end strike, return to routes Friday

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This article was published 03/12/2020 (1914 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE wheels on the buses will go round and round Friday, marking the end of a three-month Winnipeg School Division driver strike.

The strike, which began as the new school year was starting in September, was halted last week, after the Manitoba Labour Board agreed binding arbitration will be used to bring the two sides together and ordered more than 90 WSD bus drivers to return to work. The drivers’ contract had expired June 30, 2019.

WSD spokeswoman Radean Carter said Thursday drivers have been learning the routes this week, as well as new safety protocols due to COVID-19. On Friday morning, they will be picking up more than 1,600 children from nursery to Grade 4.

“We definitely appreciate the patience from families,” Carter said.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 restrictions that keep one student to a single bus seat (unless they are a sibling or a fellow student in the same classroom) there’s not enough room for children in grades 5 and 6 this school year, she said.

Under the settlement process in the province’s Labour Relations Act, a new contract will be finalized through binding arbitration.

The union representing the bus drivers, United Food And Commercial Workers Canada Local 832, said it asked the school division for binding arbitration at the end of September. When the WSD refused, the union had to wait for 60 days after the strike began to request it via the labour board.

“The school division was absolutely not prepared to come back to the bargaining table to work on a resolve to this strike,” Bea Bruske, the union local’s secretary-treasurer, said in a statement.

“Without the settlement process, in the Labour Relations Act, this strike would go on much longer… This employer would rather deny parents of bus service instead of bargaining or letting a third party resolve this strike.”

The union said in a statement it was important to point out the settlement process that is ending this strike, and will result in a new contract, is being taken out of the Labour Relations Act by the Pallister government next year.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca