(Reuters circulated the following story by Allan Dowd on January 17.)
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The latest contract negotiations between Canadian National Railway Co., the country’s biggest railway, and its Canadian train crews have failed to produce a settlement, the United Transportation Union and the company said on Monday.
No new talks are scheduled, but a CN spokesman said the railway remained hopeful a contract deal with the 2,520 brakemen and conductors can be reached without a service disruption. The last contract expired at the end of 2003.
UTU found itself a bit confused about its next step.
Union officials in Canada said they now planned a take a strike vote, but the union’s international headquarters — which must approve job action — said it also believed the dispute could be resolved without a strike.
“At this point, there appears to be no need to circulate a strike ballot,” UTU International president Paul Thompson said in a news release.
CN Rail, which operates in Canada and the United States, has been in negotiations with several of its Canadian unions, including UTU and the Teamsters, representing 1,750 locomotive engineers.
The UTU said its talks stumbled over “quality of life principles” rather than monetary issues that have been the center of its past contract negotiations.
Union memos have identified the unresolved issues as vacations, allowances, seniority lists, company disciplinary policies and other items.
“The union maintains that the demands they are seeking are consistent with Canadian values and ideologies,” the UTU’s local at CN said in its press release on Monday.
CN spokesman Mark Hallman declined to elaborate on the unresolved issues, but said the railway believed it had addressed the union’s concerns at the bargaining table.
The federal government asked the Canadian Industrial Relations Board in December to set minimal levels of train service that would have to be maintained during a strike or lockout of train crews or engineers.
The CIRB has not said when it will rule, but neither CN or its unions can start a job action until the board acts.
No talks are scheduled in CN’s dispute with the Teamsters, which is also conducting a strike-mandate vote for the 1,750 locomotive engineers. Results of the vote are expected to be announced on Jan. 25.
CN reached a new four-year contract agreement last week with the United Steelworkers, which represents about 2,250 track maintenance workers in Canada.