(Reuters circulated the following article by Robert Melnbardis on February 29.)
MONTREAL — A union representing 5,000 workers striking over pay at Canadian National Railway Co. is consulting its members on the company’s latest contract offer, officials said on Saturday.
Talks between Canada’s largest railway and the Canadian Auto Workers (news – web sites) (CAW) union, representing shopcraft, clerical and intermodal employees, ended late on Friday with new proposals on the table.
The union decided on Saturday to adjourn further discussions until it could consult with members on how best to proceed.
“We don’t know how long this consultation period will last. In the meantime, the strike continues,” said CN spokesman Mark Hallman.
The union members, a quarter of CN’s workforce, went on strike on Feb. 20 after rejecting an offer for an annual three percent pay increase.
The strike has caused delays in CN’s container traffic and in shipments of grain, autoparts, paper and other commodities, but the impact has not been major, the company and some of its big customers say.
Analysts have said a strike stretching to two weeks would have a more worrisome impact on operations at CN, which carries more than half of Canada’s rail traffic and is the number five rail carrier in North America by revenues.
CN managers and contractors are doing the work normally done by the striking workers.
Hallman said CN’s new proposal includes three options — a three-year contract, a four-year contract, or agreeing to a nonbinding arbitration process to find another solution.
Under the three-year offer, workers would get raises of three percent a year, the same as in the rejected January offer. But the new proposal includes an incentive plan and one-time signing bonus.
The four-year contract offers wage raises of three percent a year in each of the first three years and four percent in the last. It also includes the new annual incentive plan, which would likely come in the form of a bonus.
Under the third proposal, CN and the union would agree to nonbinding arbitration by an outside party on choosing between the first two offers or finding some other way of resolving the impasse.
“This would provide an external view of merits of the offers,” Hallman said.
On its Internet Web site on Saturday, the CAW said its bargaining committee had decided to call a recess in the talks, but the strike would continue in the interim.
“The committee decided, after much deliberation, to adjourn the talks and return to the field and consult with the membership as to the best way to go forward, ensuring that we have as clear a mandate as possible before the next talks are scheduled,” the CAW said. ($1=$1.34 Canadian)