Courtesy of a poster earlier in the day, I now have the text of contract offers made by the respective parties in this dispute:
UTU of Canada's offer
Canadian National Railway's offer
These come from a site ostensibly established by the UTU of Canada. As a result, I believe that these documents are legitimate and authentic. If they are not, I hope that someone will inform of this as soon as possible. The UTU document is 19 pages of inside baseball that I can occasionally interpret, but I'd need more than is contained within. There may be more reference material at the negotiations site. The CN document looks like a brief memorandum to confirm an oral communication.
My commenter pointed out that the CN position amounted to 12 hours on, 8 hours off, 12 hours on, for six days with the seventh day being one of rest. I have no opinion on the merits of this offer. I will, however, state that the eight hours generally seems to start the minute you're off the clock, which can mean that you're stepping off a locomotive or boarding a crew van in the middle of nowhere. Therefore, you may not get eight hours of sleep before the phone rings again and you're called to duty. It's this sort of thing that makes me respectful of those who are employed in rail transportation and who manage to safely conduct transportation on a daily basis.
My hope is that the strike is resolved shortly, with an agreement that protects the CN's financial position, the interests of agreement employees, and the interests of the customers of the CN. We shall see, and coverage shall continue as best I can.
UPDATE: Additional information that I neglected to include in earlier updates notes that the UTU International has apparently weighed in on the strike earlier in the week, saying that the UTU of Canada was not authorized to strike the CN without the approval and/or involvement of the International in the negotiation process. It would appear that the Canadians promptly ignored that.
Runningtrades.com suggests that the International has done this sort of thing before, which it regards as having weakened the hand of the Canadian group in negotiations with the CN.
DISCLAIMER: I have no pecuniary interest in the Canadian National Railway or any other railroad. I have no interest or association with any element of railroad labor organization. My interest in this is purely from the perspective of an amateur industry enthusiast.
Posted by Country Pundit at February 10, 2007 11:17 AMAs a member of the Teamsters (Locomotive Engineer) and an employee of CN for 20 years I can tell you CN's offer will be worse than the abbreviated contract offer you have published here. The 8 hrs between trips is actually 6 hrs off with a 2 hr call to prepare for your next tour of duty. As you mentioned this rest may not start from the rest facility if CN gets their demands, so really how much rest will one have between tours in the future. As for the 7 days worked, one day off earned, this may be up in the air too. My interpretation is if you happen to either be at work already, or if you get called for a tour just before your day off is scheduled to start you will miss that day off for that week. Also who knows how many weeks this could go on for. As mentioned many times in the media there are quite a few employees who earn upwards of $90,000.00 in a year, and while we would stand to earn more under this contract, how could you ever maintain a family life of any kind under these terms. Under previous contracts there is a milage cap of 4300 miles earned in a month. After these 4300 miles are made you have time off until your next milage date. If CEO Hunter Harrison gets his way, there will be no milage cap and the company projects up to 7800 miles a month out of each employee. This all with no sick days and no guaranteed days off. Right now we have 12 unpaid personal leave days, that once booked for a date can not be changed. They also work the same way, if your personal leave day is scheduled for midnight and you get called for a trip at 10:00pm too bad for you. CN used to be a very good company to work for, but now most of us are there putting in time waiting for our pensions. If company demands go through it will only get worse.
Posted by: Bryan Garris at February 23, 2007 10:17 AM