CN has offered the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference – Conductors, Trainpersons and Yardpersons (TCRC-CTY) what it is couching as “one last opportunity to reach a contract settlement through negotiation,” the railroad said.
As a condition of the offer, the union would agree upfront to binding arbitration if the talks fail.
The TCRC-CTY represents approximately 3,000 CN train conductors, trainpersons, yardpersons and traffic coordinators on CN’s network in Canada.
Senior CN officers are prepared to meet immediately with the union’s bargaining committee, enlisting the assistance of federal mediators if necessary, to break the impasse with the TCRC-CTY. Unfortunately, the union has yet to accept the Company’s March 20 offer of binding arbitration to settle outstanding contractual issues.
“CN’s extensive, good-faith bargaining with the TCRC-CTY throughout the fall of 2013 produced a progressive agreement to address the union’s concerns about work-life balance and help the Company improve service and efficiency,” Claude Mongeau, CN president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
“After that agreement failed to ratify in January 2014, CN resumed negotiations with the union and secured a second tentative agreement against the backdrop of a union strike notice,” Mongeau added. “This second tentative agreement narrowly failed ratification this week by a margin of less than 40 votes.”
CN is asking the TCRC-CTY to respond to its final bargaining offer by March 22 at the latest.
