Thursday, April 19, 2007

You are cordially invited to return to your jobs!

CN Rail lifted its lockout and “invited” workers back to their jobs Wednesday night, one day before Parliamentary legislation to end the bitter labour dispute between the railroad and its union workforce represented by the United Transportation Union.

The labour dispute took another wild turn this week, when the membership of the UTU voted to reject their tentative deal with the railroad and returned to rotating picket lines. That decision to resume strike action, threatened to return the railway to the kind of occasional chaos that threatened wide sectors of the Canadian economy from Ontario auto plants, to prairie farmers and west coast ports.

With that threat in mind, the federal government then stepped in and brought in its prepared back to work legislation, which received Royal Assent on Wednesday and takes effect on Thursday night. The union has advised its workers to return to the job, while they continue to work on their behalf to address their concerns with Canada’s largest railroad.

Both CN and the UTU provided their take on the situation on their respective websites.

No comments: