A Nation Wide Labour Strike

Employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway have elected to go on strike. I have never been involved in a strike situation before, and wanted to share some of my thoughts and experiences.

Members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which includes engineers, conductors, yardmen, and rail traffic controllers, started a legal strike action as of midnight last night. We have been operating without a contract since January. The main issue is our pension. The company wants to put a cap on our pension. This means that our members who have been contributing with certain expectations upon retirement would see a significant reduction in their pension, 20-40% being the numbers I have heard. And because our contributions are so high, we have been ineligible to put money into other retirement programs.

I say this is the main issue, but the company won't even talk about the other issues until this is resolved.

Our members work long hours, are away from our homes and families for extended periods of time, and are often on call 24/7. Having a social life is extremely difficult to coordinate, and we are often denied our requests for time off. Our only alternative to getting a personal day off is to call in sick, and we don't have paid sick days, so if we don't show up for work, we don't get paid. We work weekends, nights, and holidays. We do all this because we know that at the end of our career, we and our families will be comfortably taken care of. And now they want to take that away.

Members of the union, company, and the Minister of Labour met this week, and came up with an agreement that commuter services in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal would continue to operate. This was not a position that the company originally had, although the union was willing. Freight service has been stopped nationwide.

And so I find myself in the unique position of both working and being on strike. I'm not a scab, because it was officially sanctioned by the union. But it does feel a little bit awkward.

Today, I woke up at 4:30am, got ready and reported for work at 5:45 for the morning commute. Finished my half shift at 9:30 and showed up to the picket line from 10:15 until 2 pm. Relaxed at a cafe for a short while before reporting for duty again at 4, finishing up at 9 and getting home a half hour later. And I will do the same thing again tomorrow and Friday.

Don't get me wrong, we are well paid for what we do and the hardships we, and our families, endure, but it is a trade off, our present lifestyle for future security. Other than a standard cost of living increase, money isn't even one of our concerns. Our pension, safety, and rest rules/fatigue are our main issues.

This strike won't last. Wheels are already being set in motion in the House of Commons to legislate us back to work. While I personally dislike the idea of striking, I support our decision, and dislike being denied our right to strike. The company has not been bargaining in good faith, and they have no reason to if they know we will be ordered back to work, no reason to negotiate a fair settlement when they can just delay until a government appointed arbitrator is assigned to come up with a binding deal.

Wow. I'm surprised I wrote so much. Thanks to anyone who read this, I think I mainly needed somewhere to let out my thoughts. I'll leave with a couple articles on the topic.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/05/22/cp-rail-strike.html?cmp=rss

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/06/15/f-faq-back-to-work-legislation.html

Strewth wrote:

Don't get me wrong, we are well paid for what we do and the hardships we, and our families, endure, but it is a trade off, our present lifestyle for future security. Other than a standard cost of living increase, money isn't even one of our concerns. Our pension, safety, and rest rules/fatigue are our main issues.

This strike won't last. Wheels are already being set in motion in the House of Commons to legislate us back to work. While I personally dislike the idea of striking, I support our decision, and dislike being denied our right to strike. The company has not been bargaining in good faith, and they have no reason to if they know we will be ordered back to work, no reason to negotiate a fair settlement when they can just delay until a government appointed arbitrator is assigned to come up with a binding deal.

Good luck in all that lies ahead!

If i'm honest, this is the paragraph that hits me the most about worker's rights and for demonstrations/rallies/protests. One of the most powerful tools when we are being short-changed available is this action and yet in the current climate we (people around the world) are increasingly being denied these democratic freedoms...

I simply do not understand how these companies and states who have agreed to pay a pension can get out of doing so. I have no idea what a person does in that situation. Here is where I want to see bailouts.

Good luck.

Wow - that's unfair to change the rules for people already well into their careers. I'm a little confused though - is your railway affiliated with the government (aka Amtrak), or a fully private company? If it's private, why is the government stepping in?

If a sovereign government (federal, state, or provincial) can simply step away from a contract, like a pension, there is no reason why any citizen should believe any contract issued by that entity.

We have had our legislature here in Arizona do everything it can to get its hands on the $28 billion state pension fund used for pensions for public servants and school teachers. But the voters secured the fund as a binding and legal contract decades ago and said no one can touch the fund. However, there are powers here that would love nothing more than to dissolve the fund and throw the pension dollars into the general fund and tell school teachers and public servants, "Too bad, so sad, we need the money more than you do."

I feel for you, Strewth, and I wish you the very best.

Phoenix Rev wrote:

If a sovereign government (federal, state, or provincial) can simply step away from a contract, like a pension, there is no reason why any citizen should believe any contract issued by that entity.

Not only that, but if the citizen steps away from a contract in the same manner, the government can enact punitive measures against the citizen. But citizens can't effectively enact punitive measures against a government.

It's this kind of bullsh*t (among others) that makes me support the 99% movement in spite of their sometimes-silly statements.

The CP is a crown company correct? What does that do to your rights as workers?

Here is the press release the CP sent myself and a few others from my company, really interesting to see their take on the situation vs the workers.

CP-TCRC Negotiations Update
May 23, 2012
Freight service on CP's Canadian network remains shut down due to the strike by the Teamsters union. CP is disappointed the union has decided to unnecessarily walk off the job, as this is recognized to have significant impacts on your business and Canada’s economy.
The parties continued their talks today and meetings are planned for tomorrow.
This morning, the Minister of Labour advised CP that the legislative bill for return to work is now on notice with Parliament. CP will cooperate with any decision of Parliament and has indicated to all parties that we are willing to continue negotiations or enter binding arbitration.
In the event the Teamsters do not agree, CP strongly urges the federal government to take definitive action.
An embargo application for shipments routing to and from CP Canadian locations is in effect. This embargo applies to:
• All shipments originating in Canada which are billed to any Canadian or US destinations
• All shipments originating in the United States which are billed to any Canadian destinations
• The embargo can be rescinded at any time

The CP Customer Service Team is available to answer questions.
For up-to-date information on specific impacts to your shipments or other problem resolution inquiries, please contact your Customer Service Account Representative at 1-888-333-8111, selecting Option 1, then Option 1 again to enter your Personal Identification Number (PIN), then press the # sign. Using your PIN when you call bypasses the general queue and routes you directly to your assigned rep or to a backup in the event your rep is not available. If you do not have a PIN or have forgotten it, please send an email to your rep or [email protected] and one will be sent to you for future use.
Ian MacKay
Vice-President, Customer Services
Canadian Pacific

Reading up a little bit, it looks like there is a threat of Back-To-Work legislation being enacted, forcing the Union to go back to work. How does that actually work? How can they force people to work?

Well, I suspect they basically say "you report back to work or you're fired." And I doubt that they would have problems backfilling the jobs given today's global economic conditions.

Farscry wrote:

Well, I suspect they basically say "you report back to work or you're fired." And I doubt that they would have problems backfilling the jobs given today's global economic conditions. :(

That would make sense, but then why would they have to pass a law to do it?

Busting union strikes in that manner may currently be illegal. In the US it is (unions and employers have to hash stuff out via mediators), I'm not sure about Canada though.

I think the law is because the Canadian pacific rail road is a government owned company.
Both the class 1 rail roads in Canada (CP & CN) are "Crown" companies so they operate under different rules.

Quick update from the picket line:

We are a private company but the strike has a trickle down effect on the entire economy, which is why the government is getting involved.

The second link I posted talks about the back to work legislation and how it works.

We are the smallest Class 1 railway in North America, but we also have the best safety record. We have always been a private company and built our 24,000 kilometer network ourselves, unlike Canadian National (CN) was a government company until a few years ago when it went private, and its network and rolling stock were paid for by the government.

Thanks for posting that release from the CS VP, that was interesting to read.

Will post more later this evening when I have more time.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/story/2012/05/23/f-canadian-pacific-railway-strike.html

I will say the IMC world is supporting you guys, if it was the CN with this my response would be die in a fire as I loath that company, but the CP has always been more responsive and better run. Thanks for the info i didn't know you guys were not crown like the CN was. That prob explains why you treat your customers like customers (relatively speaking you still are a rail road so you know you hate us customers by nature )

In the last year I remember back-to-work legislation against Air Canada (Federal), BC teachers (provincial) and Canada Post (Federal). This is getting ridiculously and dangerously common. The fact that CP is a private company facing BTW legislation bothers me.

That's the Conservative government for you. Always looking out for big business at the expense of the common people. I hope the NDP delay the reading like they did for one of those other groups.

The liberals would do the same thing in a heartbeat.

All the best from the US. I know little about how it works up there in the great white north, but I did have family that worked on the railroads here. My grandpa did not really have too much of a life until he retired. He did not have great luck with a family life until he retired and met my grandma (Who was remarried). It was because of the solid pension plan and benefits that he was able to have a solid life after he retired.

Good luck. Strikes are slowly but surely being squashed as a method by which the worker can address injustice. I hope yours is successful.

It doesn't help that the Labour Minister claimed to want to let us work things out ourselves, but less than 10 hours after being on strike, announced that she would be introducing the back to work legislation because of the disruption to the economy. With the knowledge that we would be ordered back to work anyways, there is no reason for the company to negotiate in good faith. They also manufactured a crisis by laying off a bunch of employees. I think they've all been recalled now in anticipation for our return.

The party line is that the Canadian economy will lose $500 million dollars each week we are off, and our economy is too fragile to allow it to continue. CP is losing something like $20 million each day we're on strike. It seems that reason they want to cap our pension is because they mismanaged the pension fund by investing in something that was high risk and they're worried about being able to pay out when we retire. So for the sake of a couple million dollars, they've lost approximately $160 million so far. Meanwhile their 1st quarter of this year they reported $142 million in net profits, and the CEO just resigned a couple weeks ago with a severance package of $18 million.

The vote for bill C39 was passed in the House of Commons, now it just has to pass a vote in the senate, which it seems the Liberals are stalling on it. It's expected to be passed sometime on friday, which means that we would be expected to be ready for work 12 hours after that.

The Conservatives claim to be the party for the working family, but it is clear that they are at the beck and call of big business. They've set a pattern by legislating back both the postal workers and airline workers. Apparently the postal workers have been in court because the arbitrator that was assigned decided to give them a deal that was worse than what the company was offering. Our only real hope at this point is that the arbitrator they assign has experience dealing with pension issues, and understands how the railway works.

When I was out on the picket line today, there were managers running the engines and doing work in the yard. This isn't so much of a problem because they're qualified to do the work, and they've probably been told to do the work by their bosses. My concerns are the stories I've heard, that if it were us, would have had us severely disciplined, whereas it will probably just be swept under the rug. One of the yard engines was run with handbrake left on and the wheels had to be replaced. Someone was also talking about a near-miss incident that almost happened, supposedly because nobody was protecting the point of the movement. If true, this is a Cardinal Rule Violation, which would get us in heaps of trouble if not fired if we were to do it. I guess management gets to play by different rules, because who's gonna discipline them?

In Israel there were several strikes recently. The ugliest was the doctors strike. It was really bad. At some point the doctor union signed a bad 9 year deal (like 2% raise per year) with the government and the young hospital doctors were extremely unhappy so they all decided to quit their job. About 1000 letters of resignation were filed and after the 30 day of the early notice have passed the court said they were illegal . So about 700 doctors resigned again this time with a hand written personal letter. It still didn't work. They eventually negotiated and got minor improvement and the government agreed that an outside party would check if the government deliver what it promised .

One of the main problems the doctors had was the great workload. They are required to work at most 6 26-30 hour shift per month but most of them were doing 8-9 . I read an article from 2010 that claims some of them were working 100 hours a week and most work 320 hours per month. One of my co-workers' fiance' is a doctor and he told me that the contract the doctors signed has an asterisks by each condition that says "unless the hospital needs are not met" .

Our train workers had a strike for 3-4 days and they got a 25% raise and 10000+$ but they agreed not to strike for about 3 years. Our train workers had so many strikes in the past years I joked that they should tell people when they are going to work. The train workers like most don't work weekends or late at night except for rare occasions. There is no significant public transportation active on the weekend in israel except for Haifa which has busses since before 1948.

Good luck on your strike . It's generally a last resort move. What's common in Israel that the union first does a 1 day warning strike before starting a big one. The strikes usually escalate and become worst. In some strikes like airport customs they don't stop working but start working harder which jams the international airport ( we only have one). It's also common for clinics to have one day strikes if someone physically attacks the medical crew .

For us to strike, the union had to have a vote to see whether the members wanted to. I'm not sure what the return rate on the voting was, but 95% of those that voted were in favour of striking. It wasn't a vote to strike per se, but to allow the bargaining committee to decide to strike on our behalf if necessary. The results are good for 60 days after the vote is counted, with another vote required if that deadline is passed. Under the Labour Code of Canada, 72 hours notice is required for either a strike action by the union or a lockout by the company.

I believe it has been 25 years since our running trades employees have gone on strike at this company. The threat might be there whenever contract negotiations come up, but it is not something that we take lightly or do on a whim. There are never any winners when a strike or lockout occurs, but sometimes it is necessary so that you don't lose so much.

Hey Strewth, any updates?