Employees will walk off the job at 10:00 p.m. EST
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Some Canadian rail workers will walk off the job tonight if their unions and employer can’t reach a deal.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), who represent employees at Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), issued a strike notice on Saturday.
The strike is set to begin at 10:00 p.m. EST.
The strike notice came a day after the unions rejected CP’s latest contract offer by more than 90 per cent.
Negotiations have not progressed enough to warrant any other action, the unions say.
“CP is offering more of the same contract language that workers just voted to reject a few hours ago,” Doug Finnson, president of the TCRC, said in a statement Saturday. “The company clearly isn’t serious about reaching a negotiated settlement and delivering on their promise to do right by their employees.”
Many of CP’s customers, including farmers who rely on rail service to transport grain, would be impacted by a strike.
The work stoppage would also halt any momentum generated by Bill C-49’s passing.
“Last week’s passage of Bill C-49 was good news for the long term success of grain farmers but a work stoppage would have an immediate negative impact on farmers,” Jeff Nielsen, president of Grain Growers of Canada, said in a statement yesterday.
Growers see the strike as just another hurdle associated with the ag industry.
“It looks like just another challenge farmers face in a line of many,” Chris McQuid, a cash crop and cattle producer from Vermilion, Alta., told Farms.com today.
The silver lining, McQuid says, is that the strike is happening in the summer and not during harvest.
“Really there’s no good time for a strike, but the timing at least allows them to get a deal done before we need to begin moving grain,” he said.