Negotiations have officially begun between the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) and unions representing nearly 3,600 rail workers across the country, as the current collective agreement expires on December 31, the Unifor union announced Saturday morning.
Improving wages, social benefits, retirement plans as well as protecting the exclusive right to work are among the priorities that the employer side will have to respond to, Unifor indicated.
“Our members who work for CN go above and beyond the call of duty to keep trains running and goods moving across the country,” Unifor National President Lana Payne said in the release. We expect to make significant gains for rail workers during this round of negotiations.”
Unifor Local 100 and Council 4000, which represent all employees affected by these negotiations, also want to protect their members’ jobs “at a time when technological advances threaten to eliminate jobs.”
These negotiations are taking place in a context where CN has had to revise downwards its profit forecasts for 2024, while a work stoppage paralyzed its operations last August. Faced with contract negotiations doomed to failure, CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) then locked out more than 9,000 of their workers.
Unifor calls for conciliation
Unifor filed a request for conciliation with CN on Friday in order to advance discussions between the parties.
For good reason, the union explained in a press release that the management side “complicated the situation” by announcing its intention to lay off at least 65 Unifor members.
For its part, CN maintains that these layoffs are linked to an adjustment of its workforce according to the volumes transported by its trains. The rail company says it will welcome furloughed employees first when volumes increase.
“These temporary layoffs have nothing to do with negotiations with Unifor and no workforce reduction plan is underway,” explains CN Media Relations Advisor, Michelle Hannan. Temporary layoffs that make minor adjustments to CN’s workforce based on volumes are part of collective agreements.”
CN explains that it is “disappointed that Unifor filed the notice of dispute so early in the process” of negotiation, but that it remains determined to reach negotiated agreements with the union that are “good for staff members, customers and the economy.
A tumultuous year for CN
In August, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ordered the country’s two main railway companies, CN and CNKC, to resume operations and employees represented by another union, the Teamsters, to return to their positions until binding arbitration can produce new contracts.
A directive was issued by the federal Minister of Labor, Steven MacKinnon, following the lockout initiated for 9,300 CN and CPKC railway workers.
Teamsters Canada decided to appeal the decision, saying the imposition of binding arbitration set a dangerous precedent.
No Unifor representative was available before next Tuesday to answer questions from The Canadian Press.