CNR engineers go on strike over wages/miles

Staff

Last Wednesday, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) served noticed to initiate strike action at Canadian National Railways (CN) effective 00:01 local time, Saturday, November 28, 2009.
As that time came and went approximately 1,700 locomotive engineers went on strike.
According to the TCRC, the decision to serve strike notice came after CN notified the Union they planned to arbitrarily alter the terms and conditions of the working conditions for locomotive engineers.
CN advised the TCRC that it plans to incorporate a 1.5% wage increase coupled with the requirement to have locomotive engineers work an additional 500 miles per month over the amount required by the present Collective Agreement. This change would require some of locomotive engineers to work seven days a week with no time off and cause layoffs within the ranks of the conductors, trainmen and yardmen.
The parties have been assisted by Federal Mediators since August in the hope of renewing their Collective Agreement, which expired on December 31, 2008, but stalled after CN declined to continue negotiations during their last bargaining session.
Saturday night, TCRC offered a possible solution to CN to resolve the present impasse between the parties.
The solution offered to CN by the TCRC, through the Federal Mediators, was to submit the wage portion of the dispute to final and binding arbitration upon successful resolution of the other outstanding issues.
“CN must accept their responsibility in this dispute as well” said Daniel J. Shewchuk, President of TCRC. “We do not feel our position on wages is excessive as they are in line with what CN has negotiated with other Unions. Nevertheless, in an effort to move the process forward we indicated that we are prepared to submit the issue of wage increases to final and binding arbitration.”
Sunday morning CN declined the TCRC’s offer to return to the table and indicated that final and binding arbitration was the only solution. “We continue to offer solutions but are extremely disappointed that CN’s focus is to have all issues handled through final and binding arbitration without having to negotiate.” said Shewchuk.
CN said a TCRC strike is particularly unfortunate because CN has repeatedly offered, and the union has refused, to submit the contract disagreements to binding arbitration in order to avoid a labour disruption.
CN said a labour strike at this time is in no one’s interest, as it will hurt CN’s customers, its employees and the Canadian economy.
CN has implemented its labour contingency plan, under which qualified management personnel will work as locomotive engineers. CN is committed to provide the best possible service to its customers in the circumstances and will do so until it can reach a new agreement with the TCRC.
Locomotive engineers will remain on the job in the following CN territories because of separate collective agreements: northern Alberta, parts of northern and eastern Ontario, northern Quebec, and parts of eastern Quebec and New Brunswick.
“As advised by the company, these changes are the tip of the iceberg and we cannot sit idly by while CN simply changes the terms and conditions of the Collective Agreement. Our members deserve much better than that.” said Shewchuk.
The TCRC is also in the process of filing a complaint of bargaining in bad faith against CN as the situation continues to deteriorate.
Late Sunday the federal government threatened to legislate the engineers back to work if the two parties could not reach a resolution by Monday. Monday the legislation was introduced.
There was no word at press time whether or not the legislation passed.