CN spokesperson shares perspective on rail dispute

The labour disputes at Canada’s two biggest railways have gone to binding arbitration after the federal government stepped in to end a lockout at Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. last month.

The move comes after pressure from business groups who warned of huge economic impacts if work stopped at the two railroads.

Jonathan Abecassis, a spokesperson for CN Rail, joined the Evan Bray Show on Thursday to share the company’s perspective on the labour dispute, and whether rail transport should be designated as an essential service in Canada.

READ MORE:

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• Labour lawyer shares perspective on rail strike, and what lies ahead
• ‘We need to ship our product:’ Sask producers want rail dispute settled

Can you give me your thoughts at the heart of this labor dispute? What are the points that didn’t allow you to get past the finish line?

ABECASSIS: So for us, we’ve been trying to get a deal, or we tried to get a deal with the teamsters for approximately nine months. We had multiple sessions where negotiations were supposed to happen, where, frankly, they simply didn’t engage. It’s really hard for us to negotiate with an empty chair. We have put forward five different offers – some offers that even included to voluntarily go to binding arbitration. It’s kind of like an arbitrator that really sits there, listens to both sides and make a decision. Teamsters didn’t want any of that.

We tried to offer better agreements for their employees, for people that work at CN. We tried to offer a better deal for everyone, better availability, better knowledge of when your schedule is going to is going to allow you to take some time off. And, unfortunately, the teamsters simply didn’t engage, which led to the government having to mandate us to go to binding arbitration, to answer your question directly about what’s at the heart of it. We don’t know what the teamsters were were pushing back on because, quite frankly, the engagement they gave us couple of days before the strike began didn’t lead to anything conclusive. It wasn’t telling us exactly where the issue were, like they were saying publicly, this is about safety, and then when it came down to it, the first page of their offers were all about financial compensation.

What we tried to do at the beginning of all of this is provide employees with better scheduling. And the railroad people don’t know necessarily when they’re going to work. They’re pretty much on call, which, as I’m sure you can understand, isn’t great and is especially hard for somebody that’s just trying to get into the business, young in the early 20s, trying to start a family, not an easy job necessarily, for people to get into because of the schedules. We believe that by providing better scheduling and telling people, “OK, well, you’re going to work this day, you’re not going to work that day.” You can take your rest, you can take your kids to the dentist, you can spend the time you want at your family, helping for the harvest. We believe that that’s a positive thing for employees.

Unfortunately, the teamsters didn’t want to hear about it and simply reverted back to saying no. They wanted to stick to the same agreement that we had now, that has that lack of clarity in terms of availability. We don’t think that. We didn’t think that was acceptable, but in the interest of getting a deal we put another offer forward that would actually stay within the parameters of the existing agreement. Teamsters said no to that, again and again. So at some point we were looking, we were looking to get a deal. We were trying to do everything we could to get a deal, and it didn’t materialize.

You’ve touched on a couple of points – rest periods, scheduling – one of the things that the teamsters pointed out was these were what they viewed as management going in and eroding existing conditions in the collective agreement. Would you agree with that assessment?

ABECASSIS: I don’t, because the fact of the matter is that rest is legislated by something called the duty rest period rules. Now these are new rules that were brought into place in May of last year. And these rules say, “OK, well, after so many hours of working, or so many miles of working, you get this amount of time off, and after you’ve done the equivalent of a couple of 1,000 miles, well, you get a full week off.” The impact of that is actually pretty significant in terms of labor availability.

Problem is that the union was looking at the what they had in their collective agreement and what the law prescribed, and stacking them together and saying, “Well, we get the best of both worlds.” That’s not what the law was intended to do. The rules around it, the duty rest period rules, were intended to set guidelines to set a very clear process around when people can work and when they can’t work. And we believe that those rules are fair. We believe those rules are positive, and they’re a great step forward for employees and for the ability to have scheduled rest time. That’s what we were focusing on.

And all of our offers, by the way, stayed within those guidelines. Nothing we proposed went outside of that. We couldn’t even propose something outside of that. Even if we wanted to, we have to stay within those boundaries. So an accusation that we were trying to erode rest is simply not true.

One other point that I wanted to address with you, Jonathan is is this notion of relocation. I don’t know that I completely understand it, but I know the teamsters were were upset about the possibility of members having to relocate to somewhere nowhere close to or remotely close to their home, and perhaps being in place for weeks, if not months. Is that something you can comment on?

ABECASSIS: Right now, within the existing agreements, we have regional agreements where people can go work within their territory. What I mean by territory is, the railroad is split into essentially three territories: east, west and south. East basically goes into the Ontario-Manitoba border. Everything west of that is west. Within east and west, within their own territories, people can go work at another terminal. So let’s say there’s a conductor in Melville who unfortunately doesn’t have the ability to work because there’s not enough work for him there. He can go work. He can go work in Edmonton if he wants to, and vice versa. But a conductor from Melville can’t go to Montreal and vice versa. What we tried to do is actually have that be allowed in the context of a nationwide agreement. We think that a conductor in Montreal is a conductor in Melville is a conductor. And, to be very clear Evan, this would have been 100 per cent voluntary, and it is, right now, 100 per cent voluntary.

That’s why this positioning by the union is a bit misleading, because it’s something that’s allowed. It’s something that’s voluntary. It’s something that they know about. In fact, we offer a premium of $750 a week for people who volunteer to go on these assignments. We offer them an extra week off. And, while they’re on duty, their all expenses are paid; travel, food, lodging, everything is covered. So it’s disingenuous to say that this is a forced-relocation scheme, because it’s simply not true. We want to have people work everywhere. And when we hear that there’s a need for more and more people, especially out west where we have quite a significant part of our volume, especially during harvest and during the grain crop year, we want to make sure that we have the manpower to move goods and to be able to get farmers’ goods to end market as quickly as possible. But, as it stands right now, there is a significant labor shortage in certain parts of the western region, and having that flexibility of having people from the east, where we have a surplus of conductors, come out west to work would actually be beneficial for your listeners.

The rail service was was stopped for the better part of, I think, four days – you would know more accurately than me. Are we back on track? Have we caught up, or are there still backlogs?

ABECASSIS: We’re essentially current to demand. There’s some areas where it’s not quite there yet, but we are, overall, roughly at the same level of velocity. Velocity is the average speed of a train or a rail car that we measure how productive and how efficient the network is. Right now, we’re roughly at the same place.

Did you co-ordinate efforts through this labor situation with the other railroad, CPKC? Was there co-ordinated efforts through management?

ABECASSIS: No. For us, we’ve been trying to negotiate with the with the union for a year. They’re the ones who were happy to have a one-year extension agreement from 2022. We were supposed to sign a deal in 2023 – the union agreed to have a one year extension. We didn’t impose on them. They were happy to do it, and it pushed us to have the same timelines as the other railroad.

Last question: Do you think rail workers in Canada should be deemed an essential service?

ABECASSIS: A challenging question. We know we play an essential role in the economy. The challenge that we have is, under the definition of the law, anything that is essential is something that’s not replaceable. So it’s hard for us to say that we are essential when there are alternatives to shipping. They’re not good alternatives, to be clear. They’re more expensive. They create more greenhouse gasses. They’re slower. They congest our road. They cost more (for) taxpayers. But there are alternatives, and that’s where that challenge lies. So we know the role we play. We’ve been pretty adamant about the essential nature of what we do; however, within the definition of the law, we can’t say that we fit that criteria, and that’s the challenge.

—This transcript has been edited for clarity.