Local striking railway workers are waiting to see what happens while their union is at the negotiating table.
Around 4,800 CP Rail employees walked off the job after midnight on Wednesday after contract talks broke down. Negotiations continue between the company and Teamsters Canada.
Teamsters Division 243 picket captain Randy Mior, who represents about 150 striking workers in Thunder Bay, said the company wants too much from its workers, including a 40 per cent pension cut. That would reduce each workers pension by about $20,000 a year.
“They want to cut everything. They want to cut the pensions. We have zero per cent for wage increases. They want to make us work double divisions and longer hours,” Mior said outside of CP’s Thunder Bay office on Syndicate Avenue Wednesday morning.
Mior’s been working for CP for 25 years.
“The last thing I want is for them to be able to claw it back on me,” he said.
Although the workers voted 95 per cent in favour of a strike, Mior said they want to see an agreement reached sooner rather than later.
Earlier Wednesday federal labour minister Lisa Raitt said she wanted to see the company and union reach an agreement themselves instead of stepping in.
“The minister did say she would step aside and wait and see how things were going but that can change at any time,” Mior said.
But Raitt said later that the strike, which has halted grain, fertilizer, coal and other goods along CP’s 24,000-kilometre track system, could cost the Canadian economy nearly half a billion dollars per week.
She started the process for back-to-work legislation that could be introduced Monday if no agreement is reached.
The workers’ collective agreement expired Dec. 31, 2011.
