*Allegedly* I feel compelled to write a post, further explaining the strike situation as I see it with CN rail. I originally did not post due to concerns over my job and/or feeling it was not a relevant post for this site.. now seeing how widely it is affecting Canadians and Canadas economy I will.
CN is demanding we no longer be able book rest at our home terminal past 8hrs without being punished, they are demanding the abolition of road and yard work, they are demanding the abolition of the conductor only provisions in our contract. These are the three main stickers for their side.
The union's main sticker is the abolition of belt pack work in -30°c for distances of 17 miles.
Explanation of why this is a legitimate reason to strike.
-CN wants to reset our "EO's" if we book more then 8hrs rest at our home terminal. What that means if we get in from a bad trip and need more then 8hrs rest, we will sacrifice our only way to get up to 48hrs off consecutively.
-CN wants to abolish road and yard work, what that means is traditionally one crew is to get the train to a terminal and another crew is for sorting it out. CN wants to make it that either crew can do either job or both.
-The conductor only provision essentially says CN is to do their best to make it so you can build your road train and leave in the fewest moves possible and that you only move cars that pertain to your train. So coupling this with the abolition of road and yard work.. it means they can call you for anything and make you do anything so you will never truly be prepared for work.
Now having said all this, they can already do all these things because we are not allowed to turn down work due to it being a violation of the contract. We have to do it and "grieve it" and if we forgot key parts or lack proof or forget to file the grievance they dont pay.. so it is not about being able to move frieght more effectively it is about being able to do it cheaper and work their employees longer hours. If we are on a 10hr sub and get to our final terminal on our tenth hour, they can keep working us till our 12th.. this will simply gaurantee we will always work 12hrs. Even when we file rest for our 10th telling the rail traffic controllers (rtc) we are tired and want to be at our place of rest on our 10th hour, they can work us 12hrs with no consequences aside from a small 100 mile claim we file for being violated.
Now this is not to mention the fact we can never tell when we are going to go to work, because they refuse to update the line ups. So you could be protecting a 12hr call from 07:00 to 15:00 and you never, ever know if it will be at the begining or end of your call window. Sometimes you even get called for a work train and that is a 16 hr shift. They just have trains ordered when they are needed with no warning at all and if you decline the call due to that, you get a statement and 20 demerits of which you only need 60 to be fired. So you find many many people who are being forced to work tired due to managements laziness.
Now the unions main sticker, beltpack is a two handed job, riding a car requires one hand.. minus 30 celsius for 17 miles, plus whatever wind chill due to the moving cars.. you start to see the issues.
Regarding the strike, before it happened CN managers had been told by their bosses that using management they would be able to service 60% of CNs business.. apparently they are claiming they can only do 10% now lol. They are only running intermodal trains, from what I have seen and my friends and friends of friends in many other terminals have seen. Which is calculated move, it makes them the most money, bar none and it helps turn the farmers against us as well as the Quebecois. They could very easily service the farmers and the Quebec Propane issue, if they so choose.. but they choose not to.
In emails they send to employees they keep trying to skew the optics and make it look like we want more money, we do not. The average conductor for CN makes around 114k/year.. my terminal we make more then that. What we want is the ability to know when we are going to be going to work, time to rest properly at home, the ability to plan weekends with our families and the ability to go home alive. We are tired, we are beat and they want to make it worse.
Not to mention what they did to the trainees! These guys were promised 3 months living expenses paid, a $3,600/mo training wage and were warned about a possible lay off after qualifying. They were being put up in hotels due to being relocated and given time to find homes to rent. Now word on the street is they have all been laid off due to no one being available to train them, even though managers are qualified to train them! And they are apparently being kicked out of their hotels and onto the street. We feel this is just a move by the company to put more pressure on the union and the union is fighting this hard, hopefully the company back tracks on this.
*End allegedly*
Our economy could be catapulted into a recession due to this strike, farmers are suffering, Canadians everywhere are suffering and we (I'll speak for tcrc here) are heartbroken because of it. CN is making a lot of demands this time around and binding arbitration could really hurt us.. so we are avoiding it. But we are your friends, we want to move your products and get them to market.. but if we do not strike our lives may be far far worse then they are now.
Abdullah
P.s for those who wish to show us support honk, wave, come by and chat with, heck coffee or treats are appreciated. We want to be your friends, your allies, not the badguy. Again this is not about money, it is about safety.
CN is demanding we no longer be able book rest at our home terminal past 8hrs without being punished, they are demanding the abolition of road and yard work, they are demanding the abolition of the conductor only provisions in our contract. These are the three main stickers for their side.
The union's main sticker is the abolition of belt pack work in -30°c for distances of 17 miles.
Explanation of why this is a legitimate reason to strike.
-CN wants to reset our "EO's" if we book more then 8hrs rest at our home terminal. What that means if we get in from a bad trip and need more then 8hrs rest, we will sacrifice our only way to get up to 48hrs off consecutively.
-CN wants to abolish road and yard work, what that means is traditionally one crew is to get the train to a terminal and another crew is for sorting it out. CN wants to make it that either crew can do either job or both.
-The conductor only provision essentially says CN is to do their best to make it so you can build your road train and leave in the fewest moves possible and that you only move cars that pertain to your train. So coupling this with the abolition of road and yard work.. it means they can call you for anything and make you do anything so you will never truly be prepared for work.
Now having said all this, they can already do all these things because we are not allowed to turn down work due to it being a violation of the contract. We have to do it and "grieve it" and if we forgot key parts or lack proof or forget to file the grievance they dont pay.. so it is not about being able to move frieght more effectively it is about being able to do it cheaper and work their employees longer hours. If we are on a 10hr sub and get to our final terminal on our tenth hour, they can keep working us till our 12th.. this will simply gaurantee we will always work 12hrs. Even when we file rest for our 10th telling the rail traffic controllers (rtc) we are tired and want to be at our place of rest on our 10th hour, they can work us 12hrs with no consequences aside from a small 100 mile claim we file for being violated.
Now this is not to mention the fact we can never tell when we are going to go to work, because they refuse to update the line ups. So you could be protecting a 12hr call from 07:00 to 15:00 and you never, ever know if it will be at the begining or end of your call window. Sometimes you even get called for a work train and that is a 16 hr shift. They just have trains ordered when they are needed with no warning at all and if you decline the call due to that, you get a statement and 20 demerits of which you only need 60 to be fired. So you find many many people who are being forced to work tired due to managements laziness.
Now the unions main sticker, beltpack is a two handed job, riding a car requires one hand.. minus 30 celsius for 17 miles, plus whatever wind chill due to the moving cars.. you start to see the issues.
Regarding the strike, before it happened CN managers had been told by their bosses that using management they would be able to service 60% of CNs business.. apparently they are claiming they can only do 10% now lol. They are only running intermodal trains, from what I have seen and my friends and friends of friends in many other terminals have seen. Which is calculated move, it makes them the most money, bar none and it helps turn the farmers against us as well as the Quebecois. They could very easily service the farmers and the Quebec Propane issue, if they so choose.. but they choose not to.
In emails they send to employees they keep trying to skew the optics and make it look like we want more money, we do not. The average conductor for CN makes around 114k/year.. my terminal we make more then that. What we want is the ability to know when we are going to be going to work, time to rest properly at home, the ability to plan weekends with our families and the ability to go home alive. We are tired, we are beat and they want to make it worse.
Not to mention what they did to the trainees! These guys were promised 3 months living expenses paid, a $3,600/mo training wage and were warned about a possible lay off after qualifying. They were being put up in hotels due to being relocated and given time to find homes to rent. Now word on the street is they have all been laid off due to no one being available to train them, even though managers are qualified to train them! And they are apparently being kicked out of their hotels and onto the street. We feel this is just a move by the company to put more pressure on the union and the union is fighting this hard, hopefully the company back tracks on this.
*End allegedly*
Our economy could be catapulted into a recession due to this strike, farmers are suffering, Canadians everywhere are suffering and we (I'll speak for tcrc here) are heartbroken because of it. CN is making a lot of demands this time around and binding arbitration could really hurt us.. so we are avoiding it. But we are your friends, we want to move your products and get them to market.. but if we do not strike our lives may be far far worse then they are now.
Abdullah
P.s for those who wish to show us support honk, wave, come by and chat with, heck coffee or treats are appreciated. We want to be your friends, your allies, not the badguy. Again this is not about money, it is about safety.