CN to continue freight operations during planned conductors’ strike

-- Logistics Management, 2/7/2007

MONTREAL—Canadian National Railway Company (CN) is activating its strike contingency plan in order to maintain freight operations across Canada after the United Transportation Union (UTU) notified the company yesterday that it plans to strike CN’s Canadian rail operations beginning on Feb. 10, a company release says.

E. Hunter Harrison, president and chief executive officer of CN, said in a company press release: “CN and the UTU remain in negotiations, and we believe there is time to reach a new collective agreement before the strike deadline.”

“We will continue freight operations across Canada during a UTU strike, with management personnel performing UTU-represented jobs, and provide the best possible service,” he added. “This plan is essential to our customers and the Canadian economy.”

The UTU represents approximately 2,800 CN conductors and yard-service employees in Canada.

According to CN, a UTU strike will not affect other unionized employees in Canada.

Excluded from strike action are UTU members employed on CN’s Northern Quebec Internal Short Line, Algoma Central Railway in Ontario, and Mackenzie Northern Railway in Alberta.

CN spans Canada and mid-America, from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the key cities of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., Green Bay, Wis., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, St. Louis, and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America.