CN Engineers Issues Go to Arbitration

By 250 News

Prince George,B.C.-  Talks aimed at resolving the issues between the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference and CN  Rail ended  on the weekend with no agreement.  That means the unresolved wage and benefits issues for 1,700 CN  locomotive engineers in Canada will be submitted to binding arbitration.

The company and union agreed, as part of the memorandum of settlement that ended the TCRC’s strike Dec. 2, 2009, to third-party arbitration of wage and benefits issues if further talks failed to resolve their contractual differences.

The federal Minister of Labour will now appoint an arbitrator, who will have 90 days following his or her appointment to report to the Minister with a final decision on a new collective agreement. Nothing precludes CN or the TCRC from agreeing to further negotiations once the arbitration process starts.

Under the dispute resolution mechanism of the Dec. 2, memorandum of settlement, no further strike action is permitted by the TCRC, nor can CN lockout TCRC members.

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