Strike at CP Rail threatens economy
Oil exports, commuters to be affected; back-to-work act mulled
Locomotive engineers and conductors walked off the job Sunday at Canadian Pacific Railway in a move that threatens to snarl carload traffic across the country and impede everything from oil exports to commuter trains.
Talks between union and company officials failed to yield an agreement leading up to a deadline of midnight Saturday. Management will now operate reduced freight service on CP’s Canadian network, the railway said.
The governing Conservatives plan to introduce back-to-work legislation Monday that will put an end to the strike.
Labour Minister Kellie Leitch said she was “incredibly disappointed” the union was unable to reach an agreement with the company after she personally intervened in the talks. Canadian Pacific had agreed to let the matter be decided in government arbitration but the union refused, she said.
“Due to this reckless disregard for Canadians, and the Canadian economy, our government will review all available options to end any work stoppage expediently, up to and including the introduction of legislation in Parliament,” she said.
Negotiations with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents about 3,100 workers, centred around union demands that the company comply with agreements requiring train crews to stop and rest after 10 hours of continuous work.
The company’s work rules regarding scheduling and rest time are “dysfunctional,” the union says, and crews have not been able to rest after 10 hours of continuous work guaranteed under their collective agreement. The company claimed in its statement that 72 per cent of all engineers and conductors do not take the time off they are entitled to.
“Our conductors and engineers have plenty of options for time off, but the vast majority don’t take full advantage of those opportunities,” chief executive officer Hunter Harrison said. “We want to implement a model that allows us to properly schedule crews.”
Harrison is working on a fouryear plan to boost annual revenue at CP to $10 billion.
Keith Creel, CP’s chief operating officer, estimated the strike could cost the Calgary-based railway about $1.7 million daily.
Peter Edwards, vice-president of Labour Relations for CP, expressed support for the government’s move. “What we’re really hoping for is an agreement that will work for both, but we haven’t been able to get it,” he said. “We’re supportive of getting our good railroaders back.”
He said that although “the door is open” to continue negotiating with the union, no additional talks have yet been scheduled. The rail strike could slow commerce across the country, from producers of oil, who have become increasingly reliant on rail because of a lack of pipelines, to manufacturers and commuters in Montreal.
As many as 19,000 people who use three commuter lines in Montreal operated by CP employees could be affected by the strike, according to the city’s commuter rail agency.
Canadian Pacific delivered 110,000 carloads of crude last year, 22 per cent more than in 2013, according to company data.
CP announced an accord Saturday with the 1,800 maintenance workers represented by Unifor, another union, before their strike deadline. Under Harrison, who took over in June 2012, Canadian Pacific has eliminated about 18 per cent of its workforce as part of a plan to improve efficiency. Canadian Pacific had 14,499 total employees at year-end.