“This strike notice provides for time for the company to come back to negotiations and address members concerns,” said Steve Torgerson, general secretary of the Grain and General Services Union (GSU), in a Jan. 2 news release.

Yesterday, the union issued Viterra a 72-hour notice that they intend to strike as early as 2:00 pm on Jan. 5.

GSU members from Viterra Country Operations and Maintenance and Viterra’s Regina head office have been negotiating for “fair wages, improved work-life balance, and workplace respect,” for more than a year, the union said. The two unions represent 436 workers, Viterra Canada said in a Jan. 2 news release.

Union members voted “overwhelmingly” to reject Viterra’s final offer, a Dec. 15 news release from GSU said, citing a lack of real wage increases.

Both parties are scheduled to resume bargaining today and tomorrow with a government appointed mediator, Viterra said in the Jan. 2 statement.

Viterra may consider a lockout if an agreement can’t be reached, the company said.

“We are committed to the collective bargaining process and remain cautiously optimistic that we will be able to arrive at an agreement with the GSU”, said Jordan Jakubowski, Viterra Canada’s vice president of human resources.

The company has contingency plans in place to minimize disruptions to customers, the statement said.

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AGCanada.com. She writes from southeastern Manitoba.

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Unifor members represented by Locals 4211, 4212 and 4323 in Ontario and Locals 4319 and 4320 in Quebec “have all delivered strong strike mandates,” the union said in a release Wednesday.

Locals 4211 and 4319, which represent the seaway’s supervisory and engineering group of workers, had already voted Aug. 1 to reject a tentative deal, Unifor said.

The maintenance, operations and administrative unit, represented by Locals 4212, 4323 and 4320, announced Oct. 12 its members had voted 99 per cent in favour of strike action if a deal isn’t reached by a deadline of Saturday (Oct. 21).

“Employers have seen that workers will absolutely use their right to strike when they feel it’s necessary, and our members in all units at the Seaway have had enough,” Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, said in a release Wednesday.

“It’s time to come to the table with a serious wage offer or the employer can watch what happens when workers stand together and demand their fair share.”

“This employer has shown no willingness to address the workers’ concerns in the workplace or approach them with a respectful wage offer,” Unifor Quebec director Daniel Cloutier said in the same release.

Unifor said such a strike would “effectively shut down transit through the Seaway.”

SLSMC concurred in a separate release Wednesday, saying that “should the unionized workers proceed with strike action, the St. Lawrence Seaway will be closed to all traffic.”

The not-for-profit corporation, which handles movement of marine traffic through Canadian Seaway facilities — that is, 13 of the waterway’s 15 locks between Montreal and Lake Erie — said it has started to implement its plans for an “orderly and safe shutdown of the system” within the 72-hour notice period.

Meanwhile, SLSMC said it “remains committed to obtaining a fair settlement, and will continue to bargain in good faith with the assistance of a federally-appointed mediator.”

“Cargo movements through the Seaway are an important part of the North American economy
and supply chain,” the corporation said Wednesday.

“In particular, this labour action would impact grain movements during a period when the world is in dire need of this essential commodity, even as supply has been affected by the situation in Ukraine and the greater frequency of extreme weather events being experienced around the world.”

A separate U.S. government corporation, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. (GLS), operates seaway facilities within U.S. territory, including two locks at Massena, N.Y., about 120 km southeast of Ottawa. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Teamsters Canadian Rail Conference – Conductors, Trainpersons and Yardpersons (TCRC-CTY), which represents about 3,200 CN conductors and railyard co-ordinators in Canada, has served 72 hours’ strike notice, the company and union said separately Saturday.

The TCRC’s previous collective agreement with Montreal-based CN — a three-year deal which was also reached just hours ahead of a strike deadline — expired on July 23.

The company and union have been in talks since May 21, according to the federal labour ministry.

“If a settlement cannot be reached this weekend, we will once again encourage the union leadership to accept binding arbitration as an alternative to disrupting the Canadian economy,” CN chief operating officer Rob Reilly said in a release. “We remain committed to constructive talks to reach an agreement without a work stoppage.”

The TCRC, in a separate release, said it “hopes to reach a negotiated settlement that its members can ratify, and to move forward without a service disruption.”

The Teamsters cited worker safety and hours and proposed prescription drug plan changes among outstanding issues. Wages, the union said, “are not a major sticking point” in the talks.

“Rather than reaching an agreement at the bargaining table, CN is intent on submitting these issues and more to binding arbitration,” the union said. “By resolving its differences with the union through arbitration, the company hopes to achieve gains that could not have otherwise been made by negotiating in good faith.”

Despite the serving of strike notice, “I am encouraged to see that both parties are still negotiating,” federal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu said in a separate statement Saturday.

Hajdu said she and Transport Minister Marc Garneau “have reached out to both parties to encourage them to continue these negotiations and reach agreements.”

Federal mediators have been “working closely with the parties since June” and are “currently meeting with them to help them reach agreements,” she added.

CN, the union said, “currently requires TCRC members to operate trains alone from outside of the locomotive, hanging on to moving trains with one hand while operating a remotely controlled locomotive with the other.”

Railroaders, the union said, “are expected to do this in rain and in freezing temperatures, sometimes for distances of up to about 17 miles… and the company has refused to come to a satisfactory agreement at the negotiations table to adjust their operating practices in the interest of safety.”

CN, the union said, “also wants to make it more difficult to take time off and make employees work longer hours, in an attempt to get more work done with fewer people and to reduce staffing levels.”

“CN is telling our members that they are facing tough times, but the reality is that they made over $3.8 billion in the third quarter of 2019,” TCRC president Lyndon Isaak said in the union’s release. “They should be ashamed to be pleading poverty.”

CN on Oct. 22 reported gross revenue of $3.83 billion for its quarter ending Sept. 30, up from $3.69 billion in the year-earlier period. It booked net income of $1.195 billion for the quarter, up from $1.134 billion in last year’s Q3.

CN at the time said its increased revenue for the quarter “was mainly due to freight rate increases and higher intermodal revenues.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents about 3,000 CP engineers and conductors, served strike notice late Tuesday, as did System Council No. 11 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), representing over 360 CP rail signals and communications staff.

If exercised, both strike notices would take effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

The TCRC said it would continue talks with CP Wednesday morning, adding it “hopes to reach a negotiated settlement that its members can ratify, and to move forward without a service disruption.”

Citing a “lack of progress at the bargaining table,” however, the TCRC also said “systematically bullying workers, while pushing them to work well beyond their point of exhaustion, is part of the reason why workers at CP have been forced to risk strike action for the third time in six years.”

CP conductors and engineers last held a one-day strike in February 2015, ending in binding arbitration under threat of federal back-to-work legislation from the former Conservative government.

IBEW System Council No. 11 chairman Steve Martin, in a release Sunday, said the union has also “maintained a willingness to continue bargaining without the intent of a work stoppage.”

IBEW’s members at CP handle assembly, repair, testing, inspection and maintenance of electronic equipment and components on rail lines and railroad crossings.

While it has “always negotiated collective agreements without a work stoppage” at CP in the past, IBEW said CP, during this round of talks, “has continually attempted to defer bargaining to binding arbitration.

“By refusing to extend conciliation and minimizing their availability to meet, CP has forced what seems to be an inevitable work stoppage while openly seeking government intervention with an end potential of arbitration.”

The TCRC, in a separate release last Saturday, also accused CP of “attempting to manufacture a crisis to force government intervention and avoid bargaining with the Teamsters,” adding that arbitration “leads to better outcomes for the company.”

“Serving a strike notice is part of the bargaining process that unions must follow if they want to be able to strike,” CP CEO Keith Creel said in a separate release Wednesday morning.

CP, he said, “urge(s) the two unions to work closely with us and the federal mediators to achieve a positive outcome as soon as possible in the hours leading up to the deadline.”

Calgary-based CP said Wednesday it “continues to work closely with the TCRC and made significant movement in bargaining Monday afternoon, presenting the TCRC with new progressive three- and five-year agreement options.”

The railway said it would meet with the IBEW later Wednesday and “is presenting the union with streamlined three-year and five-year agreements for consideration.”

“At the end of the day, this is all about our 12,000-strong CP family, and making decisions that benefit all of our employees,” Creel said. “Further, those decisions must be rooted in providing service to our customers and delivering for our shareholders.”

Federal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu, in a statement Wednesday afternoon, said she has been “closely monitoring the situation through the FMCS (Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service) and will continue to do so.”

FMCS mediators are working with all parties in talks, she said, noting all are “remaining at the bargaining table to continue their discussions.”

Hajdu said she would speak soon with IBEW brass and has spoken to Creel and TCRC president Doug Finnson, having “communicated my expectation that the parties will continue to negotiate in good faith and arrive at an agreement.”

Hajdu’s statement did not mention the option of back-to-work legislation in the event of a strike. The federal government, she said, “has always supported a fair and balanced collective bargaining process, because it gets results.”

The Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions said Wednesday they have written to Hajdu to “take immediate steps to prevent strike action.”

“We need immediate government intervention to make sure that an already difficult situation with grain movement by rail does not worsen,” Alberta Barley chair Jason Lenz said in a release.

“The movement of grain is so essential to the Canadian economy that it should never be disrupted by strike action. But unfortunately, we see labour disputes almost every year.”

“If a strike were to take place, farmers who can only access the CP line would have no other options to move their grain and would have to wait until rail is moving again to be paid,” AWC chair Kevin Bender said in the same release. “This will in turn cause major cashflow issues into this year’s growing season.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Montreal-based CN said Saturday it had received 72-hour strike notice from the conductors’ unit of the Teamsters Canadian Rail Conference (TCRC), putting the unit in strike position starting at 4 a.m. ET Tuesday.

The unit’s most recent contract, settled in June 2014 through binding arbitration, expired last July.

“We continue to negotiate in good faith with the assistance of a federally-appointed mediator in order to reach a fair agreement before the strike deadline,” chief operating officer Mike Cory said Saturday in a release.

CN, he said, is “also offering to resolve our differences through binding arbitration with a neutral arbitrator” and “remain(s) optimistic that we can reach an agreement without a labour disruption.”

“The company will try to paint themselves as victims, when in reality, they’re likely to provoke a strike for the sole purpose of having an arbitrator possibly grant concessions,” TCRC vice president and lead negotiator Roland Hackl said in a separate release Sunday.

“We’re doing everything we can to avoid a strike, and Teamster members expect the same from management.”

In a separate statement on the Teamsters’ website, Hackl said the union, company and mediators are now at “a critical stage and are going to catch a few hours’ sleep before starting again this afternoon to hopefully come to an agreement in principle.”

According to the TCRC, the railway wants concessions on a “wide range” of issues, “despite averaging $3 billion in annual profits since the last collective agreement.”

Over the weekend, the TCRC said, CN “served notice that it would unilaterally impose changes to the collective agreement that could permanently and irreparably impact workers. The union had no choice but to issue a strike notice in order to prevent this.”

In a separate notice to members Saturday, the union said the changes CN sought would allow the company to “unilaterally implement material changes — such as terminal closures, home terminal abolishments, mandatory relocations, or whatever else they want, with little to no ability for the union to negotiate any protections for the members.”

Affected TCRC members previously voted 98 per cent in favour of a strike mandate, the union had said in a separate notice last Thursday. — AGCanada.com Network

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The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents CP’s locomotive engineers, conductors, trainmen and yardmen, said Tuesday it’s notified CP that the affected workers will strike effective 12:01 a.m. Sunday “in the event ongoing negotiations do not result in an agreement.”

Negotiators from the TCRC and CP are meeting this week in Montreal, with Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services staff. The TCRC’s previous collective agreement with CP expired at the end of 2014.

In a release Tuesday, TCRC president Douglas Finnson said the union’s CP membership is “determined to achieve a negotiated settlement” and “optimistic that CP will be able to agree with an acceptable set of terms the membership will ratify.”

That said, Calgary-based CP so far has been “completely unable to provide the majority of our members with any sort of accurate information on when they are required to work,” he added.

CP negotiators, he said, “have admitted their line-up model is completely unpredictable and they are simply unable to fix it.” Also, Finnson said, CP is “either unwilling or unable to comply with the collective agreements that require train crews stop operating and obtain rest after 10 continuous hours of work.”

A CP spokesperson was not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

Barring negotiated deals, federal back-to-work legislation or both, the worst-case scenario for rail-reliant Prairie grain growers will see TCRC-represented conductors and engineers at CP and engineers at Canadian National Railway (CN) either on strike or locked out as early as next week.

Talks between CN and the TCRC were due to end Jan. 24, followed by a mandatory 21-day cooling-off period, after which work stoppage could begin at CN at the same time as a CP strike, as per the TCRC’s notice.

The TCRC’s previous collective agreement with CN for engineers also expired at the end of 2014. — AGCanada.com Network

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