CP, union at odds over rest, schedules

Canadian Pacific Railway is butting heads with one of its unions over its workplace fatigue practises, saying its efforts to bring predictable schedules and mandatory time-off periods to employees are being “thwarted at every turn.”

The Calgary-based railway launched a website this week in an effort to “dispel myths” about work, rest and time off for its workers. In an interview, Peter Edwards — CP’s vice-president, people — said the company has been fighting to get the issue of predictable scheduling and hours for conductors and locomotives onto the bargaining table, but has so far been unsuccessful.

“We’re pounding the table for action,” Edwards said. “It’s to our advantage to increase predictability as a company, for all kinds of reasons.”

Currently, conductors and engineers at CP work on an on-call basis without set shift schedules or lengths, though they can take advantage of a number of different rest opportunities built into the system — everything from earned days off to the ability to request time off after reaching a certain mileage point or after completing a trip.

The system has been the target of complaints by some crew members, who say the unpredictability makes it impossible to get enough sleep or even to know when they should try to sleep in preparation for a shift.

Rail safety is also a concern — last week, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board identified employee fatigue as a contributing factor in 20 per cent of its rail incident investigations conducted since 1994. In a statement, TSB board chair Kathy Fox called previous efforts by the railway industry and Transport Canada to address the issue “inadequate,” and called on railways and Transport Canada to take further action to mitigate the risk of fatigue for operating crew members on freight trains.

Edwards said CP is keen to make changes to its scheduling system. He said that two years ago the company tried to institute mandatory rest provisions to ensure employees got proper sleep. However, that move prompted the filing of a grievance by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents approximately 3,000 of the company’s conductors and engineers.

Union president Doug Finnson said the problem with the mandatory rest provisions is that they were in effect regardless of trip length, meaning even an employee who had only done a three-hour run would be required to “rest” for six hours after arriving at the destination.

If that destination was not the employee’s home base, he or she would be prevented from getting on the next returning train and essentially be stranded away from their family.

“It was a complete disaster,” Finnson said. “It was a ridiculous policy that actually caused fatigue, and didn’t prevent fatigue.”

In August, an arbitrator ruled in the union’s favour, saying CP had provided “absolutely no evidence” to demonstrate that mandatory rest after every run would reduce fatigue or make the workplace safer.

However, the arbitrator went on to say railway workplace fatigue is an important issue, and the two sides should address it in collective bargaining.

On Wednesday, the Teamsters released their own document on fatigue risk and best practices in the railway industry. Finnson said in an interview that the union is advocating for a system in which workers are assigned set “on-call” periods.

Edwards said CP is not opposed to that idea, but employees would have to give up the short-notice, optional time off provisions that make scheduling so complicated.

“We’ve offered it, but only if you clean up the insanity of our existing work rules that do not work,” he said. “And I can’t even get them (the union) to sit down about it.”

In June, a House of Commons standing committee recommended that Transport Canada form a working group to develop options to improve the management of railway crew fatigue. The committee said a final report should be tabled in Parliament no later than Jan. 1, 2018.

“Dysfunctional working conditions,” including a lack of reliable schedules, was one of the reasons cited by the Teamsters for a shortlived strike in 2015. That strike ended after only a day and a half, when the Harper government signalled its intent to force the 3,000 employees on the picket lines back to work.

The current collective agreement between the union and Canadian Pacific expires in December 2017.