(Reuters circulated the following story by Jeffrey Jones on May 22.)
CALGARY — Canadian Pacific Railway asked courts for more restrictions on picketing track maintenance workers on Tuesday as a strike over wages and work rules ended its first week with no new talks scheduled.
CP Rail, the country’s No. 2 railroad, has been seeking injunctions across the country to keep striking workers from disrupting operations at its intermodal terminals.
In the first days of the walkout last week, members of the Maintenance of Way Employees Division of Teamsters Canada caused delays at Vancouver and Toronto locations of the terminals, where shipping containers are moved between trains and trucks.
“We are in court today for two locations — one in Ontario and one in Vancouver,” railway spokesman Mark Seland said. “Otherwise, we’ve got injunctions for many other locations and everything is operating much more fluidly.”
The 3,200 striking workers maintain and repair CP Rail’s tracks, bridges and structures. The carrier has brought in replacement workers from its management ranks in efforts to keep grain, coal, lumber, fertilizer and other freight rolling.
Talks toward a new contract broke off in late April and union members started the strike on Wednesday.
The two sides are not talking to each other directly or through a mediator appointed by Canadian Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, officials said.
Court injunctions have not done much to change picketing activities, said William Brehl, the union’s president.
“It means the judges are satisfied that they have something in place to keep order on the picket line in case it gets disorderly. It has not been disorderly yet that we know of,” Brehl said.
The union has said it wants bigger wage increases than the 3 percent agreed on by other bargaining units at CP Rail, arguing its members’ pay has lagged behind that of the others.
The railroad has said it could offer the bigger increases, but only if the track workers gave up other work-rule concessions to generate savings and improve efficiency.
CP Rail shares were off C$1 at C$76.74 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.