Monday, November 30, 2009

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference union represents 1,700 engineers. The engineers have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2008. Wages, the number of kilometres engineers can drive each month, and other work rules are believed to be among the issues dividing the two sides.

The engineers walked off the job on Saturday. The Canwest News Service reported last night that a senior government official said that the federal government will introduce back-to-work legislation if the two sides can't come to an agreement by today.

CN has said passenger service will not be disrupted by the strike, and that freight service will continue, with managers taking up the slack. In 2007 we saw significant service delays when 2,700 conductors went on strike.