ST. LOUIS — Train engine employees working on the former Illinois Central railroad soon may consider a proposal to be paid by the hour, instead of a complicated system based on miles and rules, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The United Transportation Union, which represents 600 conductors and brakemen on the line, on Thursday announced a tentative agreement with Canadian National Railway Co., which bought the Illinois Central Corp. in 1999.
CN first struck similar agreements with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in the Wisconsin Central and Illinois Central divisions, and then with the UTU for 308 employees in its Wisconsin Central division.
Rick Radek, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, said the new agreements replaced “very complicated rules” that had evolved from agreements negotiated about the time of World War I. The new rules have resulted in “less disputes over pay rules and fewer arbitrations,” he said.
“We found the middle ground, for what we felt was fair compensation for employees doing all types of work,” Radek said.
Local chairmen of the UTU will meet this weekend in Memphis, Tenn., to consider whether to take the proposal to the membership. CN and UTU declined to discuss specifics of the proposal until next week.
Hourly compensation is “a fundamentally different approach to compensation in the rail industry,” said Mark Hallman, spokesman for Canadian National. “There are a number of significant gains in terms of productivity for the railroad. At the same time, it will offer improved quality of life for the employees.”
Canadian National, with 6,000 unionized U.S. employees, earlier this year began negotiating agreements with the so-called “running trades” — engineers, brakemen and conductors — that included hourly wages and simplified pay rules.
The company hopes to negotiate agreements with unions representing about 670 more train and engine employees in the United States, Hallman said.
The Illinois Central’s main route goes through East St. Louis on its way from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico.