Canadian Railroads > CN running trades gain Rest provisions in new contract

CN and its Canadian conductors, yard workers and trainpersons agreed to a new contract 
after an eight day strike in November.
The contract has now been ratified.

CN announced the settlement,
https://www.cn.ca/en/news/2020/01/cn-conductors-in-canada-ratify-new-labour-agreements/

Teamsters Canada Rail Conference gave some details,
http://www.teamstersrail.ca/CN_Ratify.html

"when exhausted workers ask to be relieved after working beyond the 10-hour limit
set out in the collective agreement, the company would previously tell workers
to “do the work now and file a grievance later” if they were unhappy.
Under the new agreement, the company will waive the “work-now-grieve-later” policy
when fatigued employees seek to book rest and be relieved,
meaning they would not be compelled to continue working"

Employees will now "receive extra compensation when forced to work 30 and 60 minutes into their rest periods,
including train staff and those at railyards."

"The agreement sets out shifts as starting and ending at the employee’s locker facility,
or another agreed location, in order to clarify when workers are on paid time.
Previously, the company would count trips to employee locker facilities as off-duty time,
significantly reducing time available to sleep.
Trips to the locker facility can sometimes take hours,
and federal work/rest rules mandate as little 6 to 8 hours off-duty time between shifts."

=14px"Employees will now "receive extra compensation when forced to work 30 and 60 minutes into their rest periods, 
including train staff and those at railyards." 

I don't see how this alleviates the "fatigue" issues. My opinion the company will use this, "you are getting paid, do it or else".
Maybe I missed something in the wording.  Doug

So, time waiting for the van, and time on the van counts as paid time? And not as limbo?

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> So, time waiting for the van, and time on the van
> counts as paid time? And not as limbo?

Time waiting for the van, or other method of deadhead, and time in the van has always been paid. 
Limbo is the time between hours of service expiration, and actual time relieved at a terminal.  Under the old US rules prior to the 12 hour law,  deadheading from an assignment was considered time off duty.   This often resulted in a crew only getting two or three hours actual rest while being off duty the required eight hours.

The twelve hour law changed that, requiring deadhead time from an assignment to be neither time on duty, or off duty, in other words, limbo time.

In the UP Sparks to Elko Pool, the computer to tie up was at the yard office, while the Oak Tree Inn was a 15 minute van ride away.  Needless to say it would be a minimum of fifteen minute wait for the van, if it was at the motel, and the driver was ready.  Now, if the van had just left the Yard Office with a previous crew, it would be a minimum of 45 minutes before we could get to the motel.  Add an hour and a half call, and fifteen minutes to get checked in and up to a room, and a crew ends up with 5 1/2 hours of sleep!

This is why the Canadian "Locker Room" off duty point requirement is mentioned, because it is the same thing, depriving crews of rest!

The former SP Conductors did not have a provision to mark rest in their contracts, while the engineers did, the only problem is  that when a conductor asked an engineer to please mark rest, although he was not supposed to be penalized on his TPA, they threatened it.

The wrangling went on for about three years, with one of the local despots opposing any additional rest under the guise of delaying Westbound trains for crew's rest, and finally the UP resolved it with a sledgehammer.  The UP put in a mandatory 10 hours undisturbed rest for all conductors arriving Elko.  This meant we got SLEEP, we didn't have to beg the engineer to mark rest, although he was usually more than willing as he was as tired as we were, and we didn't care if the motel van was a few minutes late.

Its a shame when we have to go on strike to get rest!
G

Thanks for that detailed explanation.