CN Strike Over

Wednesday, December 02, 2009 03:07 PM

Trains will soon be moving again as railway and Union reach agreement

Prince George, B.C.- The picket lines at CN in Prince George are down and its expected striking engineers will be back to work before midnight tonight.

The strike by the railway’s engineers started Saturday, but CN and the Teamsters union have reached a tentative agreement to return to the bargaining table for the balance of the week, and send outstanding issues to binding arbitration.

Teamsters Division 833 Chair, Mike King says the local executive will be meeting this afternoon through this evening and will go over the details of the proposal. “I don’t yet have the back to work protocol from head office but I would imagine everyone will be back to work by midnight tonight.”

The deal has CN withdrawing its plan to boost the per month mileage cap while the Union withdraws its work rule demands and agrees to submit its wage and benefit demands to binding arbitration.

The government had introduced back to work legislation saying the transportation of resources and goods is critical to the nation’s recovery from the recession. That legislation had yet to undergo debate.

CN employs 1700 engineers in Canada, with about about 50 engineers in Prince George, the last contract expired at the end of December 2008.

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Posted on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 03:07 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: metalman on December 2 2009 5:22 PM

That's good.
metalman.

Posted by: muckermike on December 2 2009 5:54 PM

Labour settlement model!

Posted by: Papermaker on December 2 2009 8:25 PM

CN didn't get the immediate response from the government that they hoped for.
The Bloc and the NDP threw a wrench into their "contingency plan."
A little panic later they realized it was cave or lose $$$

GREAT JOB ENGINEERS AND TEAMSTERS!!!!!!

In solidarity!!

Posted by: Eagleone on December 3 2009 7:57 AM

The government was saved from their own rashness. They had to realize taking ownership of this would mean taking ownership of CN's safety record in the years to come, and thus I think got cold feet and told CN they better find a way to make it work or the government might have to protect itself from image liability in arbitration.