CN Imposes Wage, Work Terms on Union

Locomotive engineers for Canadian National Railway are getting a small raise and work-rule change they did not bargain for, after talks between the two collapsed.

CN said it gave the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference notice that the railroad was raising engineers’ pay 1.5 percent, and pushing them up to the higher monthly mileage cap requiring them to work as many hours as conductors during a month.

The old TCRC contract with CN expired at the end of last year, and since August federal mediators had been aiding the process to get a new collective bargaining deal. But the union said a bargaining session ended Nov. 20 when TCRC proposed new dates to continue talking but that CN declined.

CN said it “regrettably reached an impasse with the TCRC after bargaining in good faith with the union for more than a year, and has decided to invoke these contractual changes to move the company forward.”

Effective Nov. 28, CN will implement the pay hike and raise the engineers’ work-distance cap to 4,300 miles from a current 3,800, putting both parts of the locomotive cab crew under the same work rule.

Both sides have said they hoped to avoid train service disruptions as they worked out their differences. CN said this week that either party can trigger a lockout or a strike with 72-hours notice. TCRC President Daniel Shewchuk said CN appears to “want to force federal government intervention without having to negotiate.”

Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.