Mediated talks between Canadian National Railway (CN) and the union for 1,700 of its locomotive engineers have broken down, the company and union reported late Friday.
The company said it now expected the engineers, members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), to walk off the job after 12 a.m. Saturday, as per their strike notice to CN. Several media outlets report the workers are now officially on strike.
“We are disappointed but not surprised,” TCRC president Daniel Shewchuk said in a release late Friday. “CN has resisted any real negotiation in what we believe is an attempt to force third-party intervention.”
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CN and the TCRC had resumed talks earlier Friday with federal mediators in an attempt to reach a settlement.
CN said in a separate release late Friday that a TCRC strike is “particularly unfortunate because CN has repeatedly offered, and the union has refused, to submit the contract disagreements to binding arbitration in order to avoid a labour disruption.”
The union had served 72 hours’ strike notice on CN on Wednesday after the Montreal-based railway made unilateral changes to the engineers’ contract, which expired at the end of 2008.
CN’s changes gave the TCRC members a 1.5 per cent wage hike, but also added a requirement for its engineers to work up to an additional 500 miles per month over what was required in the now-expired contract.
CN said it will now turn to its labour contingency plan, in which “qualified management personnel” are to work as locomotive engineers.
CN said it’s “committed to provide the best possible service to its customers in the circumstances and will do so until it can reach a new agreement with the TCRC.”
Nevertheless, analysts have already predicted a backlog of filled grain cars in the country is likely to result from a strike, which they said may also threaten Canada’s reputation as a reliable grain exporter.
CN noted some engineers have separate collective agreements and thus will remain on the job in northern Alberta, parts of northern and eastern Ontario, northern Quebec and parts of eastern Quebec and New Brunswick.
