Teamsters Canada Rail Conference

The union representing about 1,700 striking locomotive engineers at Canadian National Railway (CN) says it's now "far too obvious" that the company isn't interested in negotiating a new contract.

In a release Tuesday, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) said it had forwarded proposals late Saturday and again late Sunday to the company to resolve their "present impasse," which has seen the engineers walking the picket line since Saturday.

"This is far too obvious; CN has never had any intention to negotiate and is simply waiting for government intervention to settle the issues," TCRC president Dan Shewchuk said in the union's release.

"CN appears to be using the same tactics they resorted to during negotiations with CN conductors in 2007, which resulted in a strike as well."

Federal Labour Minister Rona Ambrose on Monday introduced back-to-work legislation that would end the strike and send Montreal-based CN and the union back into negotiations.

It's not yet known how long it will take for the legislation to pass, or if the minority Conservative government's bill has sufficient support from opposition parties. Ambrose's bill, as currently written, would legislate an end to the strike within 24 hours of the bill receiving royal assent.

While Ambrose said Monday that the government "will not impose a settlement on the employer and union," the legislation as written calls for her to appoint an arbitrator, and for binding arbitration on any issues the company and union are unable to resolve. The arbitrator would then have 90 days from his or her appointment to report back to Ambrose with his or her decisions on any remaining issues.

The union, whose engineer members' contract expired Dec. 31, 2008, said it was forced to issue strike notice after CN on Nov. 23 made unilateral changes to the engineers' work conditions.

CN's changes to the workers' employment called for a small pay hike but also proposed to change the number of miles required to be worked by locomotive engineers on a monthly basis to 4,300, up from 3,800 in the expired contract.

That plan, TCRC said, "would have immediately resulted in the loss of approximately 220 locomotive engineer positions."

"It is very difficult to negotiate with yourself," Shewchuk said of the union's dilemma in what he described as CN's refusal to return to discussions.

"Our last offer presented to CN received the same response as our earlier offers," he said. "The federal government and the public should be asking CN why they wanted to force a strike rather than to negotiate."

"Full visibility"

CN hadn't yet offered any official response on Tuesday to the union's statements. On Monday, in a memo to customers, the railway urged shippers to use its online "eBusiness" tools to keep track of their shipments during the strike.

"We have suspended demurrage, storage and guarantees on car orders," the company said Monday. "However, please continue to order and release your railcars electronically as early as possible so we have full visibility at all times of the workload you have for us."

In a separate notice to shippers Tuesday, CN said its "key focus" in its strike contingency plan is "prioritization of our local industrial service trains and assignments."

From an ag perspective, a prolonged strike would weigh heaviest on farmers in Western Canada, many of whom rely heavily on rail to move grain for export. A backlog of loaded grain cars is also expected at grain companies' inland terminals.

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