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 11:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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