Talks between Canadian National Railway (CN) and the union for 1,700 of its rail engineers have again ended without a new deal, thus sending outstanding issues to a federally-appointed arbitrator.
CN said in a release Sunday that an arbitrator, to be appointed by federal Labour Minster Rona Ambrose, is to decide “unresolved wage and benefits issues” between the company and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC).
The two sides ended talks Saturday with no deal, CN said.
The company and union had agreed, as part of the memorandum of settlement that ended the TCRC’s strike Dec. 2, to third-party arbitration of wage and benefits issues if further talks failed.
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Once Ambrose names her arbitrator, he or she will have 90 days to report to the minister with a final decision on a new collective agreement, CN said.
That having been said, there’s nothing to prevent CN or the TCRC from agreeing to further talks once the arbitration process starts, CN noted.
The Reuters news service reported Friday (Dec. 11) that CN and the TCRC had extended talks beyond a self-imposed deadline of Dec. 10.
Neither the company nor the union would say why the Dec. 10 deadline had been bypassed. The two sides had agreed to go to arbitration if they were unable to reach a deal by that date.
The Dec. 2 deal that ended the engineers’ strike prevents the union from heading back out on the picket line during the arbitration process. CN noted the agreement also prevents the company from locking out the TCRC engineers.
The two sides reached their deal to end the strike after Ambrose introduced back-to-work legislation in the House of Commons on Nov. 30.
Union president Dan Shewchuk had said Dec. 1 that CN appeared to have “never had any intention to negotiate and is simply waiting for government intervention to settle the issues.”
