Bonnie Morr was born Dec. 20, 1948, in The Bronx, N.Y., of immigrant parents.

She comes from a family of union workers. "My father was a union painter and my mother and aunts helped start the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. They were children of the sweatshops generation."

She completed three years at Hunter College with a major in sociology. She left school to travel in Europe for a year. When she returned, she went to work for Air Canada Airlines, in ticketing and ground support.

After traveling around the United States and Canada, she landed in Santa Cruz, Calif. She went back to school at the University of California Santa Cruz. She started driving buses in 1982 for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, and then in 1989 Morr moved to Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, where she is still employed.

She became interested in the affairs of her labor union, Local 23 in Santa Cruz, in 1990 after a 10-month layoff. "I swore that no one would be treated the way my co-workers were being treated at that time."

During her time on lay-off, Morr traveled to Brazil with an organization, Rainforest Futures, to help indigenous peoples organize and create a sustainable survival system.

Morr has continued to take classes from The National Transportation Institute and labor classes at the University of California Berkley.

She also has been involved in transportation task force groups to improve public transportation, and has worked to pass federal legislation on transportation-safety issues with the National Transportation Safety Board as well as help lobby for both funding and law for transit.

Morr serves as vice president of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, and also has been certified as an arbitrator with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

Morr has been married for 32 years She and her husband have a son, a daughter and two grandchildren. The family resides in Santa Cruz, Calif.