Railway lockout could have been avoided: Dreeshen

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Ryan Dahlman

By Al Beeber
Southern Alberta Newspapers

T

he federal government intervened Aug. 22 to end the lockout by Canada’s two largest rail companies but Alberta’s Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen says Ottawa should have acted sooner.

In a phone interview Dreeshen said the lockouts by CPKC and CN – which he called the first simultaneous ones by the railways in Canada’s history – could have been avoided.

Federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon was to ask the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to end the lockout by ordering a return to work and imposing binding arbitration. The lockouts have impacted about 9,300 railroad employees – conductors, engineers and yard workers.

Teamsters Canada Rail Conference members who gathered outside the CPKC marshalling yards west of Coalhurst on Aug. 22 said they’ve been without a contract since January.

Dreeshen said a stoppage of rail traffic cost the economy $1 billion a day until goods got moving again and the damage to Canada’s reputation could be permanent.

“They could have avoided all of this had they done it in the first place. And it’s exactly what we here in Alberta and across the country so many were asking, urging the federal government to do this and they finally did it. That’s at least the good news,” said Dreeshen.

With harvest starting and products needing to be shipped by train to global markets, this is the worst time for the agriculture industry to have a rail stoppage, Dreeshen said.

“This is unfathomable what would have happened had it lasted any longer,” he said.

“The binding arbitration that the federal government should have done a long time ago is finally in place but it will still take time to get everything back to normal.”

Dreeshen said the reputational damage to Canada has already started.

The CRIB process, he said, could take days.

“We had asked for binding arbitration and the federal government didn’t act and unfortunately, it even took the American government to get involved for the federal government to finally move because about a third of CP and CN’s product actually goes to the U.S. and I know U.S. officials were calling the federal government,” noted the Minister.

Dreeshen said the country doesn’t have proper positive labour relations at the federal level with federally regulated industries, especially in transportation. And “that’s something that needs to change.”

Brandon Fromm of the TCRC said outside the marshalling yards that the dispute with CPKC is about the railroad trying to “change our schedules up a lot and they want to work us longer hours and (have) less rest at home.”

And Fromm says the railroad wants them to have longer trips away from home.

Fromm says trips can be 10 hours in duration with the longest he’s been away from home being 74 hours. Another member says they’re working a minimum of 100 hours a week.

One union member said the railroad wants them to have only 10 hours off at home before another shift.

“In their brains it’s appropriate to have us have time off in hotels and away from hotels in bunkhouses,” said a union member.

“They just want to control our lives more than they do now,” said another.

One said CPKC wants the Canadian railway to be run like an American one.

“They want “They want to take all of our union rights basically away because that’s what they’ve done down in the states,” one member said.

Between 150 and 200 employees are affected here – engineers and conductors.

One employee accused CPKC of not bargaining in good faith.

“They go into a meeting and it’s option one, option two” and take it or leave it, the person said.

“It’s such a fear culture. They just put the fear into you that they’re going to fire you for any incident. It’s the only job that I’ve ever had that you had to have job insurance. We’re the only industry that has job insurance,” he said.

“We’re not even asking for an increase in wages, we just want a better quality of life, he said.

“Our predecessors fought hard to get that collective agreement and they want to get rid of it,” he said.

One union member says he’d be happy if the railroad just signed another two-year agreement and left the terms as they were.

Kevin Creel, president and chief executive officer of CPKC, says on the railway’s website that “on Aug. 9 the railroad had advised leadership of the TCRC it had set aside its offer for “a new modernized, time-based collective agreement intended to address the union’s concerns related to work and time off scheduling while allowing significant wage increases and additional customer service flexibilities,” in response to TCRC opposition to the offer.

Creel says the company has since focused on a status-quo style contract renewal for a three-year duration with no work rule changes, the only item it wants to negotiate being “reasonable adjustments to the timing of held-away pay to recognize the regulatory changes that Transport Canada made last year to the federal work rest rules.” 

He said the proposal provides fair and competitive pay increases consistent with recent settlements with other railway unions.

On its website, CPKC said it locked out TCRC – Train and Engine division one minute after midnight Eastern Time Aug. 22. It then locked out employees who are members of the TCRC – Rail Traffic Controller division at one minute after midnight Mountain Time.

“Throughout nearly a year of negotiations, CPKC has remained committed to doing its part to avoid this work stoppage. CPKC has bargained in good faith, but despite our best efforts, it is clear that a negotiated outcome with the TCRC is not within reach.” The TCRC leadership “continues to make unrealistic demands that would fundamentally impair the railway’s ability to serve our customers with a reliable and cost-competitive transportation service,” says the railway on its website.

“At this time, the responsible path forward for the union, the company, our customers, the Canadian economy and North American supply chains and the public interest is for TCRC and CPKC to engage in binding arbitration to resolve all outstanding disputes. Binding arbitration is an effective, reasonable and fair process that ultimately has been used many times in the past to resolve disputes with this union,” says the railway.