(The Associated Press distributed the following article on February 20.)
TORONTO — About 5,000 workers at CN Rail went on strike at midnight Thursday after last-minute talks with the railway ended without an agreement, union officials said.
The Canadian Auto Workers announced the strike plans in a news release issued from Toronto, saying talks that have intensified since Tuesday concluded with “no agreement in sight.”
CN’s shopcraft, intermodal and clerical workers were walking off the job at midnight local times, the union said.
The CAW, Canada’s largest private-sector union, said it was willing to resume talks at any time.
“Our one and only aim is to secure an agreement that can earn the support of our members,” CAW chief negotiator Gary Fane said in a statement.
The union agreed Tuesday to a request by Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw for both sides to attend meetings in Montreal.
The latest logjam between the two sides occurred after union members rejected a three-year offer with annual wage increases of three per cent.
CN has said it has contingency plans to keep moving freight in Canada in the event of a strike, and the CAW has pledged not to interrupt passenger services such as the GO Transit system in the Toronto region, commuter trains in Montreal and Via Rail service.
The union obtained a 90 percent strike mandate from its members last month.
Besides salaries, employees are dissatisfied with working-condition provisions, including disciplinary matters. The employees’ average annual salary is about $33,827 (45,000 Canadian dollars.)
CN is Canada’s largest railway company and a major North American freight hauler. It has operations from coast to coast in Canada and down into the U.S. Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.
The CAW represents about a quarter of the CN’s 22,000 employees.
Last year, CN moved about 4.2 million carloads of freight across Canada and through the U.S. Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.