CN Railroad locomotives move on track past freight containers sitting on idle train cars in Vancouver Harbor on Friday, February 21, 2020. DARRYL DYCK / The Canadian Press
Signal and communications workers have gone on strike at Canadian National Railway Co. in a development that threatens to aggravate transportation bottlenecks across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some 750 members of Canada’s International Brotherhood of Electric Workers quit their jobs Saturday after failing to agree on a new contract with the railroad, union negotiator Steve Martin said in an interview Sunday afternoon. The CN later confirmed the departure.
The two sides do not meet in person, but continue to talk and exchange contract proposals, Martin said. CN said in a statement on Monday that normal operations are continuing safely and that it has implemented a contingency plan that allows the railway to maintain normal operations and serve customers “for as long as necessary”.
A lasting strike could give another success to supply chains in Canada and raise the prices of goods, which have already been hit by the pandemic. Last year in British Columbia, mudslides and floods cut off all major roads between the Lower Mainland and the hinterland, as well as freight routes used by the Canadian National and rival Canadian Pacific.
There is currently no impact on operations and no one is expected, said CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis.
The union challenged that view, saying falls are inevitable if the work stoppage continues. “The impact on operations is very likely,” Martin said. This is because a large percentage of workers are on-call employees who respond to problem-solving situations such as the aftermath of storms, he explained. Others do preventative maintenance.
Strike workers repair and maintain CN road electrical and signaling equipment, such as steps, road signs and switches. This equipment dictates the potential speed of trains, just as traffic lights dictate the speed of motor vehicles on the road, Martin said.
Mr. Abecassis said the CN intends to use managers and hired workers to do the work as needed. It was not clear how this would be possible in Quebec, which has strict laws against the use of non-managerial replacement workers in a labor dispute situation.
Mr. Abecassis said CN’s contingency plan complies with applicable laws.
The union last week gave the company 72 hours notice of its intention to strike. The company has offered to resolve the remaining differences with the union, mainly on wages and benefits, through binding arbitration.
On Monday morning, CN released a letter written by Rob Reilly, its chief operating officer, to striking employees. In it, Reilly says the company is disappointed that the union rejected the company’s latest offer and explains the details of that offer.
According to the letter, it includes a 10% increase in salaries for three years, as well as more paramedic benefits and mental health support.
“We have met or exceeded all union demands in an effort to reach an agreement,” Reilly says in the letter. “I sincerely hope we can come up with a solution as soon as possible.”
Mr. Martin said one of the main issues being discussed is what is called “working outside the region.” The company wants to be able to move workers out of their home region for a specific number of days at a time, Martin said. The same issue arose during the previous contract negotiations, which led to a five-year collective agreement that expired at the end of 2021.
The last major strike in CN was in November 2019, when about 3,000 drivers, trainers and yard workers represented by Teamsters Canada left work for eight days. The shutdown froze shipments and affected several parts of the country.
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