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Vol.64/No.3      January 24, 2000 
 
 
BC Rail workers stand up to lockout  
 
 
BY STEVE PETERS 
VANCOUVER, British Columbia— BC Rail, Canada's third largest railway, lifted a nine-day lockout of 1,600 workers in British Columbia on January 5 after union officials agreed to a tentative contract agreement. The company failed to achieve most of the major concessions that it had been seeking. Union members will be voting on the contract proposal in a mail-in ballot between now and February 4.

The workers, who had been without a contract for the last two years, voted 84 percent to reject the employer's concession demands. They were locked out December 27 after union officials gave the company 72 hours strike notice on Christmas eve.

BC Rail had been demanding a 20 percent reduction in the unionized work force through contracting out jobs, lengthening the workday for many workers—especially in the running trades—from 10 to 12 hours, and reducing the size of passenger train crews. The company had also hoped to impose a lower wage scale for new employees, who would start at 80 percent of the wages of other workers. It would take almost two years before they would be paid the same.

The company was unable to win agreement for any of these concessions. However, union officials did agree that the company's demands would be submitted to nonbinding arbitration.

Union officials also agreed to a 2 percent wage increase without any retroactive pay for the two years rail workers have been without a contract.

Mike Horn, a train engineer, pointed out that rail workers' wages have been held below the rising cost of living for at least the last decade. He explained why workers were determined to resist the company's demands.

"We fought for years to win" what BC Rail is now trying to take away, he said. "If we give up any of these things now it will take years to win them back. That's the trouble when you start to go down that concessions road."

Jerry McBride, also an engineer, explained that workers were concerned, not only about the threat of substantial job losses, but also about the further deterioration of unsafe working conditions.

"Its already a dangerous place to work" as a result of sharp reductions in train crews, he pointed out. Crew size on freight trains has been cut from five in 1986 to two today. The company is pushing to also cut the size of crews on passenger trains, to lengthen hours, and reduce rest periods between runs.

When the lockout first began, union officials didn't organize any picketing. However, the officials' attempt to negotiate an agreement that included some of the concessions demanded by the company was vetoed by BC Rail. This led to a sharp reaction from many union members who were determined to fight the concessions.

Twenty-four hour picketing was organized along with several pickets that shut down Vancouver Wharves and Roberts Bank, key port facilities that are subsidiaries of BC Rail. Longshoremen, who were themselves locked out in November, refused to cross the rail workers' picket lines. The unions also organized a demonstration of about 75 rail workers at BC Rail's head office in Vancouver.

The company obtained a court injunction prohibiting further picketing of the wharves while union officials agreed to end picketing at Roberts Bank.

As it became clear that BC Rail was unlikely to win the substantial concessions it had been demanding without a lengthy strike, pressure built up for an end to the lockout, especially from the forest industry which makes up at least half of the rail company's shipments.

BC Rail then decided to drop most of its concession demands for the time being, hoping to win them through the arbitration process and in the next set of contract negotiations. The new contract will expire at the end of this year.  
 
 
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