Legal Threats, Power Struggle Derail Conductors Strike at Canada’s Largest Railroad

Nearly 3,000 United Transportation Union (UTU) conductors and yard service workers faced down Canada’s largest rail carrier, Canadian National (CN), in a two-week strike that began February 10. It was the second time in less than three years, that a small unit of rail workers shut down CN by taking advantage of the power that comes from being able to disrupt North America’s heavily-used, over-extended freight networks.

In February 2004, more than 5,000 clerks, mechanics, and inter-modal yard workers represented by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) walked over wages, benefits, and work rules such as CN’s strict discipline system.

Common employer aside, the two strikes’ stories depart in key ways.

A TALE OF TWO STRIKES

For one, the two strikes involved different unions and different work groups.

Another major difference was the internal unity of the striking union. While CAW’s top leadership strongly supported the 2004 strike, sharp divisions between the leaders of UTU’s Canadian division and the UTU International in Cleveland undermined the 2007 strike’s effectiveness.

UTU International officials claimed that Canadian UTU leaders were conspiring to deliver the CN unit to the Teamsters (IBT) by launching an unauthorized strike—a claim hotly denied by Canadian leaders who themselves are critical of the handling of the strike by the International.

As the falling out grew more inflamed, UTU International leaders publicly disavowed the strike, refused to provide strike benefits, and then moved to replace the Canadian division’s top elected leaders.

The outcome of the 2007 strike is also far more up in the air than CAW’s definitive 2004 victory. Rex Betty, a dismissed general chair and negotiator for the union, characterized the agreement brokered by the UTU International as virtually identical to the rejected pre-strike offer by the company.

The current international-appointed negotiators claim that the proposed contract’s short one-year duration allows them to negotiate a better contract later this year without the threat of government intervention and makes gains on work rules.

POWERFUL STRIKE

At first, the striking conductors seemed to be in a stronger position than their CAW brothers and sisters in 2004. Abe Rosner, a national CAW rep at CN who retains his seniority as a Canadian Pacific yard worker, acknowledged that the 2007 strike was “far more effective in its impact” than his union’s 2004 strike.

Conductors can more effectively shut down rail operations than the non-operating positions represented by the CAW. CN managers taken off guard by the strike also found the UTU’s highly skilled workers far harder to replace with scabs.

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Severe winter weather and the key role CN plays in Canada’s export-oriented, rail-dependent economy tipped the balance even further in the strikers’ favor. Canada’s grain, forest products, chemical, plastic, gas, and auto industries all faced major disruptions over the course of the strike.

Ford was forced to close its St. Thomas, Ontario assembly plant for much of the strike due to parts shortages caused by disrupted CN rail shipments. One of Canada’s busiest ports, the Port of Vancouver, estimated a loss of $730 million in goods (50 percent of its normal volume) handled in the port due to the effects of the strike. Port authorities reported a strike-related backlog in freight containers as late as early March.

As the impact of the strike grew, however, so did calls for government intervention. In this regard, the 2007 strikers may have been hampered by their own success.

In 2004, the CAW disrupted CN’s business without provoking intervention by Canada’s federal government. To avoid back-to-work legislation, the union was careful about what it disrupted. Ontario auto plants shut down on the outside by blocked rail shipments and on the inside by CAW workers “hot cargoing” (refusing to move CN shipments) were allowed to come back online after the first week of the 2004 strike as part of this strategy.

With Conservatives and right-leaning Liberals in the majority in 2007, and a more disruptive strike, conductors weren’t able to dodge the political bullet. Back-to-work legislation was introduced in mid-February in the Canadian federal legislature. (Canada’s federal parliament hasn’t used special back-to-work legislation for more than a decade).

DISUNITY AT THE TOP

Enthusiasm for the strike was strong at the outset: members voted by over 95 percent to walk out. Canadian negotiators, however, were dismissed halfway through strike settlement talks and seven Canadian general and vice chairs were suspended on charges of “dual unionism” for their alleged role regarding the Teamsters. The ensuing struggle between U.S. and Canadian officers over who had the right to lead the union produced chaos both at the bargaining table and on the picket lines.

In the last days of the strike, as these tensions climaxed, confusion about who had the authority to lead the strikers back to work broke the unity of the strike at the local level. Believing that the pending back-to-work legislation made a return to work necessary, Beatty and the other suspended leaders called on members to go back.

CONFUSION

In a stunning turn, the UTU International then stated it had authorized an indefinite strike and told workers to stay out. In the confusion that followed, some locals went back to work while others, mostly in western Canada, stayed out. Turning 180 degrees again, the International brokered a tentative agreement with CN on February 24 and called on strikers to return to work.

Though the pickets have been lifted and members have begun voting on a tentative agreement, the workers are technically still on strike. If CN conductors reject the tentative agreement (the vote count will be announced March 26) they are legally allowed to return to the picket line.

Given rank-and-file sentiment at CN, Rosner believes that it’s “highly likely” that members will vote it down. Which set of leaders will resolve the strike, and on what timetable, remains unclear.

In one last twist, the “dual union” charges seem to have become a self-fulfilling prophecy since the pickets came down. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, an autonomous rail division of the Teamsters union (IBT), filed a certification petition with the Canada Industrial Relations Board in early March to represent CN’s conductors.

According to Rosner, the majority of rank-and-file strikers back their suspended elected leaders. He believes that their anger over the chain of events is feeding the call to get out of UTU. A Teamsters’ press release claims that 65 percent of the UTU workers at CN have already signed IBT representation cards.