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Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. ratcheted up the pressure in its dispute with the union representing 4,800 of its striking engineers, conductors, and traffic controllers Wednesday by saying it would be forced to lay off thousands of their colleagues until freight service resumes at the railway.
The striking employees, who are represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, walked off the job shortly after midnight Wednesday morning after failing to reach a new labour agreement by their strike deadline. Talks continued throughout the day, but CP’s freight service in Canada ground to a halt shortly after the workers walked off the job.
As a result, CP said it would lay off 2,000 workers, and if the strike were to continue into next week another 1,400 employees would follow.
The layoffs would be in addition to the striking workers, the company said, and from areas not needed while the trains were not running, including yard workers and mechanics.
The news of the layoffs came after federal labour minister Lisa Raitt said she was readying a back-to-work bill in the event a settlement couldn’t be reached through negotiations. But with Parliament not sitting this week, the strike could go on for days before the workers are legislated back to work.
“If we want to, we have the ability to introduce legislation at the first opportunity on Monday,” Ms. Raitt told reporters in Ottawa.
The talks between CP and the Teamsters have been held up on a number of issues. But the primary sticking point remains management’s push to move new employees and future contributions from existing employees into a cheaper defined-benefit pension plan. The new plan would cap payouts at a lower level but still be ahead of their counterparts at Canadian National Railway Co., who are also represented by the Teamsters.
But Doug Finnson, union vice-president, accused CP of trying to “drastically and unfairly” cut its workers’ pensions while generously improving the retirement benefits of management.
“CP’s management needs to understand that hiding behind the federal government is not going to resolve things,” Mr. Finnson said.
For the rest of this article, please go to the National Post website: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/05/23/cp-rail-to-lay-off-another-2000-workers-for-duration-of-strike/