Going into talks starting Monday led by a federal mediator, Canadian National Railway (CN) says it’s willing to accept a “status quo” contract extension for the next three years for labour peace with its unionized conductors, trainmen and yardmen (CTY).
However, the company said Tuesday, that’s going to take some “flexibility and give-and-take” on the part of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), the union representing CN’s 2,700 CTY workers.
The Teamsters, CN said, have so far rejected the “status quo” proposal, along with two others put forward by federal conciliator Michael Bendel in talks last month.
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“While CN would prefer to negotiate changes to union work rules to gain flexibility to further improve customer service, the company recognizes that the prompt conclusion of this round of bargaining is in the best interest of the company, its employees and customers,” CN communications and public affairs director Mark Hallman told Country Guide in an email Tuesday.
For that reason, he wrote, CN would agree to a “status quo” deal “with no work rule changes, provided the TCRC endorses the deal and ratifies it quickly.”
The TCRC, which on Monday described the day’s scheduled talks with CN and federal mediator Jacques Lessard as “last-chance meetings,” said it was “pessimistic” of a favourable outcome, with both the union and railway now in a position to call a strike or a lockout, respectively, with 72 hours’ notice.
The “status quo” deal CN and the Teamsters discussed with conciliator Bendel last month would provide for wage and benefit improvements “comparable” to those seen by other CN workers, while certain “non-contentious” items would be resolved and all other issues, including crew scheduling and work rules, would be deferred.
According to Bendel’s Sept. 5 report, he recommended the deal to both sides and asked them to submit that proposal for ratification. The TCRC, he wrote, said it would do so only if his term as the conciliator could be extended until 15 days after the window for ratification closed, in case further talks were needed.
And CN, Bendel wrote, wouldn’t agree to that extension, “as it was concerned to ensure that, if (a deal wasn’t ratified and) there were a disruption in rail service, it should not occur during the winter.”
During his talks with the Teamsters and CN, Bendel said the possibilities were also floated for a one-year agreement with a crew scheduling pilot project, and a three-year agreement that went ahead with a new crew scheduling regime without a pilot project.
But with all three possibilities rejected, he wrote, “we had not only run out of time to explore other options, but we had also run out of ideas as to how any sort of agreement could be reached.”
“Dysfunctional”
Bendel, in his Sept. 5 report, added that his dealings with CN and the TCRC “have convinced me that the relationship between them is dysfunctional,” noting each is “deeply suspicious of the other’s motivations.”
As well, he said, both sides “confidently expect, on the basis of recent history, that the (federal) government will not tolerate disruption of rail service and will, if necessary, legislate a swift end to any strike or lockout” and thus “see little or no incentive for reaching an agreement, particularly on difficult issues.”
Fearing the “immediate and damaging effects” to rail-reliant Prairie farm exports, one farm group, the Grain Growers of Canada, has already publicly urged federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt to legislate the CN employees back to work if need be.
The status quo, Bendel noted, carries its own problems. For example he cited the “anachronistic” requirement that the CTY staff “are required to be on call 24/7/365 and that they can be disciplined, even discharged, for failure to report in accordance with a call.”
Bendel also criticized the previous collective agreement’s “antiquated approach to work rules,” which, “unlike the vast majority of collective agreements in Canada… spells out in considerable detail what duties can and cannot be assigned to employees and in what circumstances.”
Such rules, he said, “seriously impede operational efficiency,” and he noted CN is trying to eliminate them.
CN said Tuesday it has “expressed a willingness to work closely with the union’s leadership to improve the company-union relationship.”
