this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
120 points (98.4% liked)

Canada

7203 readers
301 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer

💻 Universities

💵 Finance / Shopping

🗣️ Politics

🍁 Social and Culture

Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca/

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
otter@lemmy.ca
120
Locked out rail workers are demanding improved safety (rabble.ca)
submitted 2 months ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
7 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The teamsters have been fighting for safety provisions regarding fatigue and for CN workers to be able to stay with their families. According to the union’s website, CPKC wants to gut fatigue provisions which would mean crews have to stay awake longer, increasing the risk of derailments and other accidents.

CN is also targeting fatigue provisions. As well, it wants to implement a forced relocation scheme, which would see workers ordered to move across the country for months at a time to fill labour shortages.

The Transportation Safety Board has put fatigue on its watch list since 2016. Crews often work long and irregular schedules which can make it difficult to get restorative sleep, according to the safety board’s website. The board wrote it is concerned about how fatigue can affect the performance of crews and therefore the safety of operations.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AnotherDirtyAnglo@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 months ago

In case you were wondering why CN and CPKC are fighting so hard against this... It amounts to a rounding error on their balance sheet at the end of the year. They've spent nearly $10 BILLION on stock buybacks since the start of the pandemic.

They could double the number of unionized workers, and it would make practically no difference to their bottom line. They could triple the union's demands, and again, the real-world cost in dollars in negligible, but the real-world improvement in safety and standard of living for the workers would be incredible.

But they won't do it without being forced, because... greed.