With just over a month before their contract expires, rail engineers and conductors represented by the Teamsters Union want a mediator to restart “stalled” bargaining with Canadian Pacific Railway (CP).
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) said Friday it has filed a mediation request with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).
“The negotiations have stalled because we think the employer isn’t committed,” TCRC chief negotiator Doug Finnson said in a release.
CP, he said, wants “significant concessions, a dramatic increase in working hours out of each employee (and to) provide less rest hours, and within an industry plagued by fatigue already.”
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Finnson said the “main issue” in the union’s talks with CP has nothing to do with wages or pensions. “We’re insisting on fatigue management because we want to make sure our members — and the public — are as safe as possible.”
The current three-year labour deal between CP and about 3,800 TCRC-represented locomotive engineers and conductors expires Dec. 31, the union said.
That agreement was reached with the help of a federally-appointed arbitrator after the federal government slapped CP and the TCRC with back-to-work legislation in June 2012, in the wake of a two-week strike.
The strike that May followed a breakdown in talks between the union and CP over issues including work rules, staff scheduling and pension contributions as well as “fatigue management.” — AGCanada.com Network
