(The following story by Phil Melnychuk appeared on the Maple Ridge News website on May 23.)
MAPLE RIDGE, B.C. — CP Rail says striking workers are impeding truck traffic at the intermodal yards in Pitt Meadows, but the workers say they aren’t.
If the two sides can ever agree on that, they might get around to finding a settlement for the dispute itself.
About 3,200 CP track-maintenance staff across Canada, members of the Teamsters Rail Conference, stopped work on May 15.
A dozen or so are picketing in Pitt Meadows.
“It’s just been amazing, people coming out of the woodwork. I guess CP has upset a few people over the years,” said Lou Viani, strike captain.
Viani said picketers are not blocking access but are asking truckers to respect their picket line by not entering the yards. “By law, if they want to go through, we have to let them go through,” he said.
Viani said the support has meant the normal 1,000 or so trucks that enter and leave the yard in a day has been reduced to about 50.
However, CP public affairs spokesman Mark Seland said the usual number of trucks arriving and departing daily is closer to 300.
And the picketing is impeding access, to the point that on Saturday only 45 trucks accessed it, although on Monday that had jumped to 90.
That’s why CP went to court Tuesday to get an injunction to clarify the picketing rules, as it has at yards in Winnipeg, Regina and Edmonton, Seland said.
The injunction will clarify that information can be handed out but no vehicles can be kept from leaving or entering the premises.
Some of the staff that are striking do the day-to-day maintenance of the tracks. They’re being replaced by management, while others more involved with the new capital works projects, aren’t being replaced because the projects are being deferred.
The yard is a depot where containers that have come across country by rail are offloaded and distributed around the Lower Mainland by trucks. Containers also come from Vancouver to be loaded on to trains.
Seland said the average annual wage is in the mid-$50,000 range. The Teamsters are seeking a 13-per-cent increase.
The dispute is not affecting commuter rail that runs on parts of CP’s tracks such as the West Coast Express.
Viani said there’s a liaison on the picket line that will report any incidents to the police but so far there have been none. However, no talks have been scheduled.
Viani said for awhile, most truckers were respecting the picket line but now there are new drivers that are being threatened with firing if they don’t cross the line.
“The longer it goes on, the tenser it gets.”