(The Canadian Press circulated the following story on April 12.)
HALIFAX — The Halifax local of the United Transportation Union plans to ignore orders from head office for 2,800 conductors and yard workers across the country to stage rotating strikes against CN Rail.
“Local 713 is not going to go on strike,” chairman Bill Johnson said Wednesday, a day after the union announced that its national membership had voted almost 80 per cent against a tentative agreement with the railway.
Dozens of CN workers in Vancouver walked off the job Wednesday morning and the union said employees in Kamloops, B.C., Edmonton and Halifax will join in on a rotating basis to try to force the company to the bargaining table.
But the 57-member Halifax local feels a two-week strike in February caused enough of a disruption for CN and the national economy, Mr. Johnson said.
“We’re not going to do any kind of rotating strike,” said Mr. Johnson, a conductor who has worked with CN Rail for 22 years.
“The Port of Halifax is open for business and we’ll take any business that Vancouver wants to give us.”
Meantime, CN struck back against the rotating labour disruptions Wednesday by locking out all picketing union employees at five of the first sites hit.
The decision affects 280 workers for the duration of the conflict at terminals in Vancouver and Kamloops, B.C., and the Ontario municipalities of Brantford, Aldershot and Oakville.
CN said it may lock out other United Transportation Union members who engage in rotating strikes at other terminals.
Mr. Johnson said local workers were none too impressed Wednesday when two union officials from Ontario showed up with picket cards at CN’s Rockingham rail yard on the shores of Bedford Basin, part of Halifax harbour.
“Nobody from Nova Scotia picketed this morning,” he said. “The only two that showed up were two stirring up shit from Ontario who have nothing to do with Nova Scotia and nothing to do with this membership.”
The February strike ended in the face of back-to-work legislation introduced but not enacted by the federal government. A tentative agreement was reached after the U.S.-based parent union fired four Canadian general chairmen for going ahead with the strike against the wishes of the union’s international president.
The one-year deal, which was recommended by the union’s new Canadian leaders, would have provided workers a three per cent wage increase and $1,000 signing bonuses.
Mr. Johnson said the United Transportation Union has lost the confidence of many members.
“These guys went in and tried to negotiate this deal, but this was a deal that we had already turned down,” he said. “We had already told CN months before this that this deal was no good and didn’t address anything that was on the table.
“We are going to wait until our general chairmen, the guys that we elected, tell us what to do — not the guys the Americans appointed, the guys we elected. They’re our negotiating committee and they’ll be the ones that will be doing the negotiating for us, whether it’s with this union or some other union.”