All out to support locked out rail workers!

Nearly 10,000 rail workers are fightng against the billionaire rail barons in Canada.

 

As of 12:01 midnight, Thursday, August 22 nearly 10,000 engineers, conductors and yard workers were locked out at CN and CPKC (formerly Canadian Pacific) across the country.

 

Every union and worker should defend and support the workers and oppose any attempt by the employers and politicians – both Liberal and Tory to strip these workers of their democratic right to strike for better safety conditions and wages.

 

The workers have been without a contract since December 2023 as CN and CPKC have been demanding concessions and refusing to negotiate in a serious way.

 

Initially the union took a strike vote on May 1 after several rounds of meetings where the employers refused to budge on their demands for concessions which put the workers in a legal strike position for May 22.

 

Trudeau’s anti-worker Minister of Labour, Seamus (scabby) O’Regan invoked a section of the federal labour code to try and thwart the strike days before May 22. Using the notion presented by the Propane industry bosses that any strike could have an effect on public safety by preventing the delivery of critical supplies. Something that neither CN nor CPKC raised, and the union disputed as interfering in their right to strike.

 

This move by the strike-breaking Liberals sought to prevent a strike and bully the union into acceding to management’s demands by delaying the possibility of strike by several months. This strategy of the employers and their minions in the Trudeau government failed to work.

 

Importantly, the default of Liberals and Tories to break transportation strikes – as they did at the BC and Montreal ports by forcing arbitration - was smashed by the successful strike of the small group of WestJet mechanics in early June this year.

 

Their determined defence of the right to strike and subsequent victory emboldened any worker paying attention and led to the hasty demise of O’Regan who stepped down shortly after his failed attempt at strike breaking.

 

Public safety and workers rights

 

TCRC’s leadership has expressed deep frustration at the employer's demands to gut health and safety provisions at CPKC, by demanding the wholesale removal of hard-fought critical fatigue sections of the agreement. In essence they are demanding that crews be made to stay awake for longer periods and have refused to address serious shortages of rail traffic controllers.

 

CN management is demanding employees be forced to relocate for extended periods of time to cover for the deepening issue of labour shortages for these skilled positions and want to extend the working day.

 

Both railways have made billions annually over the past decades. Last year CN reported a whopping $9.24 billion in profits and CPKC had revenues of $3.5 billion in the first 3 months of 2024 alone.

 

CEO salaries expose how much money the rail monopolists are making on the backs of rail workers.

 

Rick Creel the CEO of CPKC took in $20.1 million dollars in salary last year, while CN doled out $14 million to its CEO Tracy Robinson.

 

These profits and fat cat salaries come after years of gutting safety and conniving with the Transportation “Safety” Board in eroding working conditions for workers and safety in communities and areas that the nearly 42, 000 KM of rail lines go through. In 2023 there were a reported 87 rail accidents involving ‘dangerous goods’

 

Already this year there were 2 derailments within 2 days in BC, a derailment at a huge rail yard in the densely populated Scarborough neighborhood of Toronto. Since the Lac Megantic disaster the federal government has continued to allow rail companies to gut safety provisions.

 

The strike by engineers, conductors and yard crews is about ensuring safer railroads, ensuring workers have quality work life balance and that critical time to rest isn’t removed to reward shareholders with more money.

 

This is one of many major strikes that have occurred since Covid restrictions ended and inflation took off.

 

It is a strike that like the BC port workers, the Ontario construction strike of 2022, the illegal walk out by Ontario school board workers, has the possibility of opening up bigger fights against the cost-of-living crisis that workers are continuing to face. It has the possibility to not only beat the rail bosses but open the ground for fights that push the profiteers and their politicians back.

 

Already the lobbyists and corporate PR clubs like the Business Council of Canada are demanding the government prevent a strike via back to work legislation. Trudeau's partner in crime Chrystia Freeland is calling for the Union to remain at the negotiating table, we know that once lines go Poilievre will shed his fake worker friendly stance and demand the government intervene. Just like he did during the BC Port strike and his friends in the convoy movement did when they drove their truck through picket lines at the Regina Co-op refinery strike.

 

That the strike is both economical and political means every unionist, socialist and activist needs to head out to the picket lines to show support for striking TCRC members.

 

There is a mood across the country of anger at the rich and powerful who control monopolies like the rail barons. The mood that is disgusted with the Galen Westons and their ilk is the mood that can be won to back this strike and push back against the business narrative that the strike will cause inflation to return.

 

The labour movement should be arguing that the rail monopolies be brought under public control, that private capital shouldn’t control the shipment of vital goods, that workers who ensured that the economy continued during Covid shouldn’t have to sacrifice their (and our) safety and families to make CN and CPKC more money.

 

For the past 3 years the labour leadership has refused to knit together and build strikes beyond the immediate strikers. Too many strikes have been left on their own to fight it out rather than being built into a fight not just against an individual employer but against the bosses who have profited from the crisis we face. But to do that we need to rebuild rank and file power in our unions to challenge the status quo approach of the union leaders.