(The following story by Brent Jang appeared on the Globe and Mail website on May 22.)
TORONTO — In Gary McDougall’s view, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is pushing the limits too far against a group of employees already at the bottom of the railway industry’s wage scale.
He and his co-workers who maintain and repair tracks went on strike last Wednesday, upset at management’s proposals to combine “work territories,” which would force employees to drive farther to get to job sites. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference’s maintenance-of-way employees division also seeks higher wages and improved pensions and benefits.
The railway sector’s pecking order is headed by the so-called running trades, higher-paid workers such as conductors and engineers who operate the trains. Conductors average $75,000 a year and many earn in excess of $90,000. Track staff, including seasonal workers, collect an average of $42,000, says the 3,200-member Teamsters unit. CPR officials note that full-time track staff can pull in nearly $59,000, with overtime.
While CPR management treats the running trades with respect – “like the Royal Family of railway labour” – the track staff get little respect, said Mr. McDougall, who joined CPR more than 28 years ago. He is now at the top of his union’s wage scale, which ranges between $14 an hour for labourers and $24.50 an hour for skilled workers.
Union representative Ken Deptuck said the rift has deepened between track staff and management. “CP Rail already sees us as the grunts of the railway. We’re the hard-core, blue-collar workers, but it’s not the back-breaking work of the past. Many members operate specialized equipment.”
For instance, hammering machines are used to drive spikes into the ground, and there are hydraulic pullers to take them out.
Calgary-based CPR calls its efficiency drive “execution excellence.” A key element of the productivity campaign is having a flexible work force willing to drive longer distances to maintain and repair tracks.
CPR spokesman Mark Seland said tapping into a larger pool of employees covering expanded work districts makes good sense, and that scheduling long trips is already possible on a case-by-case basis, as long as management and the union agree in advance.
CPR’s proposals would result in a major change to job schedules. For instance, track employees would effectively be paid for four 10-hour shifts, but might get only one day of rest because it might take them 10 hours to drive to the job site and another 10 hours to return home. Track workers would collect mileage allowances but not hourly wages.
“We fix the tracks. We’re specialists. You can’t just hire anybody off the street to do our jobs,” said Mr. McDougall, 47, whose expertise includes being at the controls of large cranes that pick up heavy steel rails. Based in Brandon, Man., he also operates specialty vehicles that run on tracks and the road. His assignments in the past have included a 10-hour drive to Thunder Bay, Ont., and he’s not thrilled with that becoming the norm.
CPR insists it only wants to combine roughly seven general work territories so there are four main districts. “For some employees, this is a very positive alternative to being laid off when work ends on their own district,” the company said in a memo. “Employees can, and have, applied for this work.” In a letter to employees, CPR chief executive officer Fred Green said track staff are valuable employees who would be “treated with utmost respect” during the strike.
Union leaders complain that CPR wants to entrench a system of expanded work territories. Teamsters leaders see CPR’s plan as a slippery slope leading to Western Canada and Northern Ontario becoming a single work region, while Southern Ontario and Quebec form another work area.
It’s hard for CPR to hire new people in booming Alberta and B.C., so having employees on standby in Saskatchewan and Manitoba would be appealing, union officials say.