Salary issues or flexible working hours? Reduced breaks or fatigue management? The versions do not always agree, but staff availability seems to be at the heart of the discord. An overview of the main stumbling blocks in the labor disputes between the union and the country’s two main rail carriers.
In the eyes of the Teamsters union, it is the employer’s demands that are at the heart of the impasse, both for the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). In both cases, the stoppage was indeed triggered by the employer. A CN representative explained to several media outlets that the company had proceeded in this way because it takes about fifteen days to shut down a railway safely, particularly by removing hazardous materials.
Relocation
- Both companies want to “increase the mobility and availability of train crews,” but that means forcing employees to relocate for 90 days, explains Christopher Monette, director of public affairs for Teamsters Canada, in an interview with Duty. “It’s a vision of the world and of railway workers as pieces of equipment that can be moved at will,” he thunders. These relocations have consequences on family lives.
- These carriers are facing labour shortages that are particularly felt in Western Canada and more remote regions.
Wages
- The two companies are proposing in part a change in the wage model, moving from a salary calculated by distance traveled to a rate by the hour. This would be a “pilot project,” according to a CN press release, and this change would be accompanied by better scheduling.
- The CPKC already spoke in April of a “simplified time-based” method for calculating salaries, accompanied by increases.
- The carrier also released average annual salaries. A conductor would earn about $121,000, and a locomotive engineer, $150,000, not including pension or benefits.
- For the Teamsters, it would rather be a potential “maximum.” “They want to make us look like tough guys rather than Canadians who work very hard and it’s very shocking,” Mr. Monette retorts to this strategy.
- “Their entire last counter-offer is based on salary demands,” said Jonathan Abecassis, CN’s senior director of public affairs, on Thursday morning on 98.5.
Rest and safety
- Life as a railroader is “basically on-call, 24/7,” says the union’s Monette. When an employee gets a call, he or she has two hours to show up for work and operate a train all day. “You don’t know if you’re going to be back the next day or in two days,” he says. Including the time spent waiting to jump on the locomotive, as well as time spent in dormitories, workers give their employer more than 80 hours a week, he says.
- CN says that conductors and locomotive engineers work 160 days a year, but does not specify how many hours per day.
- All three parties are asking for or saying they are offering more predictability regarding rest periods, but they do not seem to agree on what that means. “Knowing when you work allows you to know when you can rest,” said Mr. Abecassis. The offer currently would be to add two hours of work per shift, while giving fewer work days per week.
- “Both companies want to eliminate protections in our collective agreements on fatigue management, which poses a rail safety issue,” said Mr. Monette.
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