CN prepared to sue over conductors strike

CN prepared to sue over conductors strike Canadian National Railway Co., said it would sue 'all local union officers in Canada who aid and abet' the strike by about 2,800 conductors and yard workers represented by the United Transportation Union (UTU), which started on Saturday, for 'any and all damages' incurred by the country's largest railroad.
   CN's Montreal-based lawyers, Ogilvy Renault, notified affected UTU general chairpersons that because they didn't follow the UTU Constitution's provisions related to a strike, and failed to gain required strike authorization from the UTU International, that CN considered the strike unlawful under the Canadian labor code.
   CN used managers to keep its freight trains moving and said that its Canadian freight network 'remained fluid.'
   E. Hunter Harrison, president and chief executive officer of CN, said: 'We are ready to negotiate with the UTU at any time to achieve a fair and equitable collective agreement, just as we have with CN's other unions. But we have the resources — and the resolve — to run the railway with management personnel filling strikers' jobs for as long as it takes to reach an economically sound settlement with the UTU.'
   Rex Beatty, one of the UTU general chairpersons and a spokesman for the union's Canadian chapter, said: 'With all due respect to our colleagues in the U.S., the union's constitution can't supersede the Canadian labor code. This is a legal strike that's part of the bargaining process.'
   According to CN, the UTU demanded 'excessive wage increases' during negotiations that broke off on Friday. 'The UTU's final offer on wages — three years at 4.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 4 percent — was 40 percent higher than the increases CN negotiated in recent collective agreements for a comparable three-year period,' the railroad said.
   CN's other unionized employees in Canada and the United States continue to work, and CN and the UTU are maintaining normal commuter rail operations on lines in Toronto and Montreal.