Canadian rail workers vote to strike. Again.

Back in May, I wrote an article about rail workers in Canada voting in favour of striking in order to win a fair contract.

Tens of thousands of workers employed with CN Rail have been negotiating for new contracts with their employer, including over 3,000 in Alberta.

In March, the 9-member bargaining committee for United Steelworkers, representing workers who inspect, maintain and repair the railway’s track, bridges and infrastructure, announced that they had reached a tentative deal with CN Rail.

Ratification meetings then took place during the rest of that month via regional in-person and online townhall meetings.

However, the Teamsters—which represent conductors, locomotive engineers, and yard workers at both CN Rail and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited—hadn’t been able to reach a tentative agreement with the owners.

In early May, the Teamsters announced that they held a strike authorization vote. During that vote, 93.3% of locomotive engineers and yard workers employed by CN turned out to vote and 97.6% voted in favour of striking. CPKC conductors, locomotive engineers and yard workers voted 99% to vote, with a 91.7% turnout. Finally, 95.3% rail traffic controllers at CPKC showed up and 96.6% voted in in favour of striking.

Clearly, it was a strong mandate to strike.

Usually, workers will use a strike authorization as leverage to try to get employers to make concessions in an effort to improve their new contract.

Had the employer,s in this case, refused to budge, it would’ve put the workers in a legal strike position on 22 May.

However, 3 days before the workers could strike, the federal government interfered with their constitutionally guaranteed right to strike.

Seamus O’Regan, the so-called labour minister, bowed under pressure from the owning class to interfere in the strike, calling for the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to review whether such a strike would “jeopardize Canadians’ health and safety”.

This move paused the work stoppage until the CIRB made a decision. Depending on how long the pause lasts, the strike authorization may actually expire before the workers get a chance to actually strike.

For rail workers, like other federally regulated industries, strike authorization votes are good for only 60 days, which means this vote would have expired at the beginning of July.

As a result, the Teamsters held another strike authorization vote toward the end of last month. According to a media release the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference published on their website, the workers have once again voted in favour of striking.

Turnout for the strike vote was 89.5% overall, and 98.6% authorized striking. Here’s how it breaks down by worker group:

Workers	Employer	Turnout	In favour
Conductors, locomotive engineers, yard workers	CN	90.1%	98.4%
Conductors, locomotive engineers, yard workers	CPKC	88.6%	99.2%
Rail traffic controllers	CPKC	88.5%	95.7%

This is another solid mandate from the workers. It is clear that the workers—not just the union leadership—are willing to strike to get a fairer contract.

As I mentioned in my previous article, the most significant issue in negotiations is that both rail companies are trying to make a work environment that is riskier for these workers.

According to last week’s media release, which echoes a union blog post from February, CPKC wants to remove all safety-critical fatigue provisions from the collective agreement.

“The end result will mean train crews would be forced to stay awake even longer,” the union said, “increasing the risk of derailments and other accidents”.

As far as CN goes, the union reports that this employer is instead focused on a forced relocation scheme.

“Their proposal would see workers ordered to move across the country for months at a time to fill labour shortages in remote areas of Canada.”

According to Paul Boucher, the president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, the bargaining committee “intend to go back to the bargaining table, work with federal mediators, and do everything in our power to reach a fair deal for our members”.