General Committee of Adjustment CP West
August 26th - All TCRC Local Chairs – CPKC Eastern and Western Regions – Negotiations Bulletin 15
Sisters and Brothers:
There have been numerous inquiries following the resumption of service last night at 0001 August 26, 2024:
It has also come to our attention that the company has posted their final contract offer on CPKC Station, the CP Exchange app, and has placed physical copies in many workplaces. This offer was provided to your negotiating committee approximately 30 minutes prior to the start of the work stoppage on the evening of August 21, 2024. It was clearly communicated to the company that the offer was unacceptable.
After this offer was rejected, the Company provided the attached letter acknowledging that a negotiated settlement had not been reached. Ironically, the letter states, “The offer provided on August 21, 2024 is now null and void and non-referable.” CPKC then chose to post this “non-referable” offer on their website, app, and in the workplace.
This offer was described by the employer as their “final best offer” to the Union. What follows is an analysis of the offer which will explain why the offer was not worthy of your consideration:
Held Away
The Company at their discretion may choose to “Not Release” (NR) any employee at the AFHT in order to work or be deadheaded home, and if there are rested employees at the AFHT they will not be considered runaround. If deemed “not released” by the Company, you would be deprived of your ability to book rest! With sole discretion of the Company, the problems would be endless.
The Company upon its discretion may run the employee back to their home terminal “DH” UNPAID for a Reset Break. The company will only provide transportation to the Home Terminal, which could be deadhead by train. The employer expects you to be on duty (possibly up to 10 hours or more on a train) without compensation! Reset Breaks may still occur at the AFHT, at the Company’s discretion. No grievance can be advanced. Held Away would not be paid to an employee on a Reset Break at the AFHT until 2 hours after their Reset Break has ended!
Yard and Road Switcher work schedules – employees working these schedules must work the entire schedule and employees who demonstrate a pattern of failing to fulfill an entire schedule may forfeit ownership of their assigned schedule (temporary and/or permanent) and may forfeit the ability to bid a 4/3 or 4/4 working schedule until the next General Advertisement of Assignments. You could be stripped of your seniority for being sick!
A new provision regarding Over hours payments and employees who do not provide notice of rest will receive the following monies, which are not cumulative:
Core Agreement benefit improvements will not be applied to the KLR and KVR agreements
The Company basically ignored most of the demands from the KLR and KVR CBAs.
For obvious reasons, the Union did not accept the company’s “best offer”. This offer would be an embarrassment to present to you, our Members.
As they have been throughout negotiations, your demands continue to be our focus. Among the many improvements we are seeking, we continue to strive significant wage and benefit increases which reflect the reality of the higher cost of living felt by all of us due to the recent inflationary trend. We are also focused on protections of your Collective Agreement and legislated rights to time off of work, your ability to use that time off to see to your personal obligations while ensuring that you are properly rested in order to safely operate trains, and the associated compensation for that time off where applicable.
We will keep you informed on any further developments.
In Solidarity,
Dave Fulton
General Chairman - CTY West
Greg Lawrenson
General Chairman - LE West
Wayne Apsey
General Chairman - CTY East
Ed Mogus
General Chairman - LE East
cc: Paul Boucher, President TCRC, Ryan Finnson, Vice President TCRC, Chris Lowe, S/T TCRC