Canadian Railroads > CN Conductors serve strike notice

The following was released on wire services on November 16, 2019 at 7 a.m. EST.
CN RECEIVES STRIKE NOTICE FROM UNION REPRESENTING TRAIN CONDUCTORS IN CANADA
Earliest Teamsters could strike is Tuesday morning

MONTREAL, November 16, 2019 — CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) said today that the Teamsters Canadian Rail Conference – Conductors, Trainpersons and Yardpersons (TCRC-CTY), which represents approximately 3,200 CN employees who work as train conductors and railyard coordinators only in Canada, has given the company a 72-hour notice of its intention to strike as of 00:01 hours Eastern Standard Time on November 19, 2019.

Rob Reilly, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of CN, said: “We continue to negotiate in good faith to reach a fair agreement before the strike deadline. In the spirit of protecting the Canadian economy, we have offered the union binding arbitration and they have declined. If a settlement cannot be reached this weekend, we will once again encourage the union leadership to accept binding arbitration as an alternative to disrupting the Canadian economy. We remain committed to constructive talks to reach an agreement without a work stoppage.”

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       Doesn't that mean they sure would like to have everyone work, protect the economy, not to disrupt anyone's delicate sensibilties and make all nice AS LONG AS YOU DO IT OUR WAY ?

The usual path of railway negotiations in Canada involves mediation. If mediation fails, the mediator "books out" of the negotiations including detailing why he/she was unable to reach an agreement, and the unions and company are free to serve strike/lockout  notice.

News release from Teamsters Canada Rail Conference...

Montréal, Nov. 16, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Given a lack of progress at the bargaining table, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) last night served notice of intent to strike to Canadian National Railway (CN). The union hopes to reach a negotiated settlement that its members can ratify, and to move forward without a service disruption.

In the event that parties are unable to reach a negotiated settlement, over 3,000 conductors, trainpersons and yard workers will exercise their legal right to strike on Tuesday, November 19 at 0:01 a.m. ET.

Rail safety and prescription drug benefits

CN currently requires TCRC members to operate trains alone from outside of the locomotive, hanging on to moving trains with one hand while operating a remotely controlled locomotive with the other. Railroaders are expected to do this in rain and in freezing temperatures, sometimes for distances of up to about 17 miles.

The union’s demands to cease these dangerous practices have fallen on deaf ears and the company has refused to come to a satisfactory agreement at the negotiations table to adjust their operating practices in the interest of safety.

The company also wants to make it more difficult to take time off and make employees work longer hours, in an attempt to get more work done with fewer people and to reduce staffing levels.

“Fatigue has been recognized by the Transportation Safety Board as a major safety problem in this industry. Too many railroaders are operating trains when they should be resting,” explained the president of the TCRC, Lyndon Isaak. “For the safety of all Canadians, we cannot allow CN to make it even harder for our members to get the rest they need.”

Moreover, CN is demanding that the union accept a lifetime cap on prescription drug coverage which would be tantamount to denying workers – and their families – proper treatment for some forms of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and other diseases.

Wages are not a major sticking point in these negotiations.

Arbitration does not work for workers

Rather than reaching an agreement at the bargaining table, CN is intent on submitting these issues and more to binding arbitration. By resolving its differences with the union through arbitration, the company hopes to achieve gains that could not have otherwise been made by negotiating in good faith.

“CN is telling our members that they are facing tough times, but the reality is that they made over $3.8 billion in the third quarter of 2019. They should be ashamed to be pleading poverty,” added Lyndon Isaak. “This obsession with profits and shareholder return, at the expense of just about everything else, is exactly what is wrong with our economy.”

The union and the company have been in negotiations for seven months and have been working with federal mediators for the past five. In September, workers voted 99.2% in favour of strike action. The previous collective agreement expired on July 23, 2019.

A work stoppage would bring CN’s operations to a halt but would not affect public transportation.

Talks with the company are ongoing in Montréal.

Teamsters represent 125,000 members in Canada in all industries, including 16,000 workers in the rail industry. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with which Teamsters Canada is affiliated, has 1.4 million members in North America.“

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I'll simply remind the readers here that it ALWAYS takes at least two people to have a disagreement and at least two people to end a disagreement. I hope for all involved it is resolved quickly.   ×   

gandydancer4 Wrote:
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> I'll simply remind the readers here that it ALWAYS
> takes at least two people to have a disagreement
> and at least two people to end a disagreement. I
> hope for all involved it is resolved
> quickly.   ×   

+1 on that hope.

My understanding is mediation, the mediator helps the sides find common ground.

In binding arbitration, the sides lay out their demands,discuss, and the arbitrator selects and imposes one or the other "final" positions.

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xcnsnake Wrote:
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> Rob Reilly, executive vice-president and chief
> operating officer of CN, said: “We continue to
> negotiate in good faith to reach a fair agreement
> before the strike deadline. In the spirit of
> protecting the Canadian economy, 

That's funny, they don't seem to care much about the economy when they are doing mass cuts and ruining what service they had for their customers in the name of ever higher profits, stock prices, and the insane drive to ridiculously low Operating Ratios.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:


> In binding arbitration, the sides lay out their
> demands,discuss, and the arbitrator selects and
> imposes one or the other "final" positions.

What you are descibing is "final offer arbitration", which is commonly used in Scandinavian labour relations, but is not the norm in Canada.  There are other forms of arbitration, in which the arbitrator has the latitude to impose a compromise position that is binding on each party.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/19 00:26 by railsmith.

Also known as "baseball arbitration".

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>        Doesn't that mean they sure would like
> to have everyone work, protect the economy, not to
> disrupt anyone's delicate sensibilties and make
> all nice AS LONG AS YOU DO IT OUR WAY ?

The economy of the folks at the bottom is already disrupted. The folks at the top (who count the money) don't want their economy (the important one) to be disrupted by those at the bottom (who make the money they count).

TAW

No agreement as of 0001 deadline, CN Conductors are on strike!

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