/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Vancouver works through rail dwell woes while warily eyeing labor talks

A possible strike later this month by conductors and engineers at Canada’s two major freight railroads could cripple operations at the Port of Vancouver while scuttling the railroads’ recent attempts to thin the inventory of long-dwelling rail containers at the port, the country’s largest.

The threat of rail strikes in Canada amid contract negotiations isn’t atypical and agreements are often struck in the final hours, thanks to federal prodding. But container lines, railroad executives and forwarders have been warning since early 2024 that this negotiation cycle carried a higher risk.

One former railroad executive who spoke to the Journal of Commerce put the likelihood of a rail strike at 50-50, adding that the industry won’t know for sure until the final hours before a May 22 deadline.

“Paying by the hour versus paying by the miles would be a game changer in Canadian rail operations,” the source, who did not want to be identified, said, referring to union resistance to the wage proposal put forth by the Class I railroads. “The union is not on board at this point, and this has become a strike issue.”

Notably, during a May 1 press conference announcing the authorization of a strike, the rail unions ducked questions on whether they would strike simultaneously at Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). If an agreement can’t be reached before the May 22 deadline, the unions could choose to target one of the railroads and focus its pressure via work stoppages.

Such a disruption would reverse the modest port performance improvement at Vancouver, where rail container dwell times are still five days or longer, on average, across the port’s four container terminals, according to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. Vanterm was the one exception, with rail dwell times on average under three days.

Excessive rail container dwells, which contribute to congestion at Vancouver’s marine terminals, have risen steadily this year, from 5.2 days in January to 6.7 days in February and 7.3 days in March, according to the port’s website.

The port has yet to release its April rail container dwell times, but railroads say dwell times have improved over the past month. On April 24, Canadian National Railway (CN) said during a first-quarter earnings call it had added eight more weekly trains serving Vancouver and Prince Rupert to handle what they expect will be sustained import growth at both British Columbia ports.

Carriers, forwarders and shippers are already making contingency plans to prepare for a possible strike, but they say their options are limited. Maersk Line on Thursday said in a customer advisory it is diverting some cargo to the Port of Prince Rupert and is “inducing Tacoma, WA, on four upcoming sailings on our TP1 service to care for US import/export rail cargo should a strike take place.”

Re-routing cargo to other gateways is probably the most viable option, but the challenge for shippers will be to get space on alternative services, said David Bennett, chief commercial officer at the forwarder Farrow. “The PNW (Pacific Northwest) is overbooked,” Bennett said.

Details please refer to JOC news.

Source:

Mongelluzzo, B. (2024, May 8). Vancouver works through rail dwell woes while warily eyeing labor talks. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/vancouver-works-through-rail-dwell-woes-while-warily-eyeing-labor-talks_20240508.html

 

/ By marketupdate / news/ • • / 0 Comments

Ocean carriers target growing China-Mexico trade with new express services

Ocean carriers are targeting the burgeoning China-Mexico trade with the launch of new services next month that coincide with soaring container volumes and growing investment in Mexico by Chinese companies.

Cosco Shipping and OOCL, its Hong Kong-headquartered affiliate, will launch an express service between Asia and Mexico in early May with a 15-day transit from Qingdao to Ensenada, Baja California, and 20 days from Qingdao to Manzanillo.

While the trans-Pacific Latin Pacific 5 (TLP5) service starts in Busan, it will predominantly serve eastern and northern China with calls at Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao and Dalian and the west coast Mexican ports of Ensenada and Manzanillo. There will be westbound calls at Yokohama and Busan.

“TLP5 is a brand-new service jointly operated by OOCL and COSCO Shipping Lines that aims to cater to the increasing demand in Asia–Mexico trade and provide a competitive option to shippers,” Michael Xu, OOCL’s director of trades, told the Journal of Commerce.

The two carriers will deploy seven vessels with a nominal size of 6,000 TEU on the loop, which starts May 6 from Ningbo, Xu added. OOCL said its existing TLP1, TLP2 and TLP3 loops are unaffected by the new service.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC), meanwhile, will launch a similar China-Mexico shuttle starting from Qingdao on May 15 that will call at Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas. The service, which is in addition to MSC’s existing Andes, Aztec, Inca and Santana loops, will be inaugurated by the 6,500-TEU MSC Apollo.

Volume, capacity boost

The launch of the new services comes amid surging volumes between China and Mexico and an investment boom by Chinese companies in Mexico as part of wider nearshoring efforts in Central and South America. Chinese investment is helping to fuel a boom in Mexico-US trade that led Mexico to overtake China last year as the biggest exporter to the US.

Details please refer to JOC news.

Source:

Wallis, K. (2024, April 30). Ocean carriers target growing China-mexico trade with new express services. Journal of Commerce. https://joc.com/article/ocean-carriers-target-growing-china-mexico-trade-new-express-services_20240430.html

 

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Baltimore readying for return of Asia volumes as recovery takes shape: port CEO

The Port of Baltimore is preparing to handle the return of cargo at the end of May as container lines begin accepting loads on Asian services for delivery to terminals that have been blocked since the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge following the crash of the container ship Dali.

Longshore labor is keeping rail gantry cranes and other motorized equipment humming and state aid is being distributed to port workers who are not working due to the sudden disappearance of container, roll-on/roll-off and bulk volumes, Jonathan Daniels, CEO of the Maryland Port Authority, said in a Tuesday interview.

Container lines, which normally operate six weekly services connecting to Baltimore, have told the port authority they have begun accepting bookings for shipments to the port, Daniels said. Maersk’s recently relaunched TP20 service from Asia, for example, will be one of the first services to return to Baltimore, he said.

Maersk’s decision to keep Baltimore as a US port of call, in addition to Newark and Houston, on the Panama Canal express service “shows a commitment that while there is a temporary blip, (carriers) do realize that this is, in fact, temporary and it’s not a long-term indication that the port has some type of structural issue,” Daniels said.

Container growth momentum, driven by distribution center expansion from customers Floor and Decor and Con-Air, remains — even if it can’t be tapped at the moment, said Daniels, who took over at the port authority less than two months before the 9,962-TEU Dali collided with the Key Bridge. Floor and Decor is doubling its distribution center at the Tradepoint Atlantic terminal to 2.8 million square feet, while Con-Air will open a 2.5 million-square foot facility later this month in Hagerstown, Pennsylvania.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source:

Szakonyi, M. (2024, May 1). Baltimore readying for return of Asia volumes as recovery takes shape: Port CEO. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/baltimore-readying-return-asia-volumes-recovery-takes-shape-port-ceo_20240501.html

 

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Teamsters Canada vote overwhelmingly to authorize rail strike as soon as May 22

Unions representing conductors and engineers with Canada’s two major freight railroads said Wednesday they have authorized a strike as soon as May 22, after 98% of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) voted to walk off the job unless a new labor contract is hammered out.

Federal conciliators have tried since March 1 to negotiate a deal between Canadian Pacific-Kansas City(CPKC), Canadian National Railway (CN) and TCRC, without success. Talks broke down on a new collective bargaining agreement soon after talks began last fall.

During a press conference Wednesday, the Teamsters declined to answer whether the individual unions under the TCRC umbrella would strike at the railroads simultaneously.

A conciliation period ended May 1. Without a deal, the two sides begin a mandatory 21-day “cooling off” period before the TCRC can strike or the railroads lock out the workers. Voting took place from April 6 to May 1. The vote tally announced Wednesday was required for the TCRC to issue a 72-hour strike notice that could come as soon as May 19.

TCRC represents 6,000 conductors, engineers and yard workers with CN and 3,200 with CPKC. The union also represents about 80 rail traffic controllers with CPKC. In the US, rail traffic controllers are often referred to as dispatchers.

Canadian rail stoppages not uncommon

The core issues in dispute include salaries, work-life balance and rest periods.

Both CN and CPKC want to abolish the per-mile pay for conductors and engineers and replace it with an hourly wage. The railroads have said the new pay scale is “modernized” and will raise wages for employees, while the TCRC says more than half its workforce will earn less until the proposed changes in pay take effect.

CPKC said it has put two proposals on the table, one of which it says would increase pay and improve work-life balance with “scheduled, predictable days off” through a simplified system, and the other that would “maintain the status quo for work rules” for rest.

“I can tell you that the progressive hourly deal, in my assessment, addresses what our employees want and need,” CPKC CEO Keith Creel said on an Apr. 24 earnings call. “They want a better quality of life. They want higher wages, which certainly is understandable. And in turn, our ability to be able to provide that is found in the terms and conditions of that hourly agreement.”

Another issue of contention is the “Transport Canada Duty and Rest Period Rules” enacted last year.

The TCRC complains that the railroads want to use rules to replace all previous workplace provisions in prior collective bargaining agreements. The union argues the rules were meant to complement terms in prior agreements, not replace them, and to do so would jeopardize safety.

Patrick Whitehead, CN’s chief network operating officer, said during a first-quarter earnings call that any claim the railroad is not committed to safety is wrong.

“We successfully implemented the duty and rest period rules that were mandated in Canada in May of 2023 and have been in full compliance with these rules,” Whitehead said on the April 23 call. “What we are doing is working to simplify the complexity of the stacking effect we experienced beginning in 2023 of the additional paid sick and personal leave days under the Canada Labor code, the duty and rest period rules and the unavailable time provided by the legacy collective marketing agreement.”

Work stoppages are not uncommon in Canada. The TCRC walked off the job with Canadian Pacific in 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2022 and embarked on an eight-day strike with CN in 2019.

In theory, CPKC and CN could run limited operations during a strike because there are managers who have been trained or have worked as conductors, engineers, rail traffic controllers, trainmasters and yardmasters earlier in their careers.

Source:

Ashe, A. (2024, May 1). Teamsters Canada vote overwhelmingly to authorize rail strike as soon as May 22. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/teamsters-canada-vote-overwhelmingly-authorize-rail-strike-soon-may-22_20240501.html

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Bad weather causing delays, congestion at major Asian load ports

Bad weather and resulting congestion at ports in Asia are causing vessel delays of up to a week at key gateways in the region, carriers say.

Hapag-Lloyd said fog is the main problem at ports in China, including Shanghai and Ningbo, while torrential rain and poor visibility were issues in Malaysia and Singapore. An index measuring wait times in harbor, produced by Portcast, shows congestion in Ningbo began rising mid-April.

The adverse conditions meant vessels could not berth even as more ships arrived at anchorage, leading to vessel bunching that exacerbated port congestion. Yard congestion in Singapore also contributed to the delays there, Hapag-Lloyd said in an advisory Thursday.

The delays come on top of the extra 10- to 14-day transit carriers face due to diverting vessels around southern Africa to avoid the risk of attack in the Red Sea region.

One of the worst-affected facilities is the Shanghai East Container Terminal, where there are delays of up to seven days, Maersk said in an advisory this week. Other terminals in Shanghai are seeing delays of up to three days, while Ningbo and Qingdao in eastern and northern China are reporting similar delays, Maersk added.

Hapag-Lloyd said vessels are having to wait up to 80 hours to berth at Port Klang and 72 hours in Singapore.

Ocean Network Express (ONE) confirmed that some ships operating trans-Pacific and intra-Asia services are having sailing schedules disrupted by the bad weather and port congestion.

Highlighting the delays, ONE sailing schedules show the 10,000-TEU Seaspan Bellweather, operating the Asia-Latin America Express 3 service, was two days late at Ningbo. That lengthened to three days when the vessel berthed at Shanghai and then five days when the vessel arrived at the next call, Qingdao, this week. ONE attributed the delays to berth congestion at all three ports.

Source:

Walli, K. (2024, April 26). Bad weather causing delays, congestion at major Asian Load Ports. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/bad-weather-causing-delays-congestion-major-asian-load-ports_20240426.html

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Norfolk expands hours to handle cargo volumes shifted from Baltimore

The Port of Virginia is expanding its operating hours to handle the increased cargo volumes now bypassing the Port of Baltimore following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26.

The Virginia Port Authority (VPA) said the Virginia International Gateway (VIG) terminal and Norfolk International Terminals (NIT) will extend their gates during the week, with new hours being 3 a.m. to 6 p.m. Additionally, VIG will be open on Saturdays from 8 am to 5 pm.

VIG had not been open on any Saturdays this year after having sporadic Saturday hours from 2021 through 2023 to handle occasional spikes in import volumes. NIT will remain closed on Saturdays.

VPA did not put an end date on the expanded hours, only saying it will monitor the Baltimore cargo it handles to determine if truck drivers at some point are able to handle the Baltimore-related cargo during normal weekday hours.

The US Army Corps of Engineers last week said it is planning to reopen Baltimore’s port to vessel traffic on a limited basis by the end of April, with a full reopening hoped for by the end of May.

More than 400 Baltimore-area truck drivers have registered to temporarily operate at the Port of Virginia, according to the VPA. The Maryland drivers will deliver cargo to destinations in Maryland and Pennsylvania normally routed through Baltimore.

“The Maryland-based motor carriers that are coming here to pick up Baltimore-bound cargo have a full day of driving ahead of them and we want this group of drivers to have a safe, efficient, and quick transaction here so they can get back on the road and headed home,” a VPA spokesperson said. “Extending our operating hours is one way of taking an additional step to help out a neighbor.”

The US Department of Transportation offered some relief on April 4, granting an exemption permitting drivers to work an additional two hours of drive time beyond the federal limits if the cargo is connected to the Port of Baltimore closure. Drivers, however, would still not be allowed to exceed 14 hours on roadways.

Norfolk Southern Railway could also serve as a relief valve for diverted cargo because it runs trains to the Virginia Inland Port in Front Royal, Va. For certain destinations in western Maryland and Pennsylvania, a rail option to Front Royal would reduce the workload on a truck driver.

VPA said there is “a lot of interest in Virginia Inland Port and we expect some additional volume there,” although it’s unclear how may containers will be railed to Front Royal.

Some differences for drivers

Maryland drivers need to be aware of two key differences between the Port of Baltimore and the Port of Virginia.

There is a mandatory appointment system until 4:00 p.m. to pick up or drop off cargo at Norfolk, something Maryland drivers might not be accustomed to because no such requirement exists in Baltimore.

The Port of Virginia also has its own chassis pool, which means if a driver uses the port authority equipment, the individual will have to return the unit back to Norfolk. The driver cannot return a Port of Virginia-branded chassis to Baltimore. However, drivers are permitted to use outside chassis at the Port of Virginia, so they could bring one from Baltimore and use it in Norfolk.

Source:

Ashe, A. (2024, April 10). Norfolk expands hours to handle cargo volumes shifted from Baltimore. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/norfolk-expands-hours-handle-cargo-volumes-shifted-baltimore_20240410.html

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Maersk to resume Panama Canal transits on OC1 service as vessel restrictions ease

Maersk will resume transits through the Panama Canal in May on its Ocean-Americas (OC1) service after the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) announced a slight increase in the number of permitted daily vessel transits through the drought-hit waterway.

The carrier, which announced the move in an advisory Friday, has since January been using the adjacent canal railroad to transfer boxes between terminals on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Maersk said it had been “closely monitoring” the introduction of additional transit slots by the ACP in recent weeks before deciding to shift back to using the canal on its OC1 service. The first northbound canal transit will be by the Maersk Inverness about May 17, while the initial southbound transit will be made by the Spirit of Auckland around May 20.

The OC1 service “will return to its pre-existing rotation that was in place prior to the current two-loop setup established with the Panama Rail connection,” Maersk said. The use of the rail link “will be phased out by the end of May,” the carrier added.

Maersk’s two-loop service involved ships operating between Philadelphia, Charleston and Manzanillo in Panama and Balboa (Panama), Tauranga (New Zealand) and Melbourne (Australia).

Maersk confirmed the new rotation of the single-loop OC1 service via the canal would include calls at Philadelphia, Charleston, Balboa, Melbourne, Port Chalmers (New Zealand), Tauranga, Manzanillo, Cristobal and Cartagena.

Maersk has been using the canal for its other services, a carrier spokesperson said.

Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express confirmed transits through the Panama Canal have been fully restored on their three Asia-US East Coast trans-Pacific services operated under THE Alliance network. That follows a partial shift back to canal transits at the beginning of this year after vessels were diverted via the Cape of Good Hope when drought-related vessel restrictions were at their toughest.

Vessel slots increased

The ACP as of the end of March increased the number of daily vessel slots available through the canal to 27 from 24. That followed an improvement in actual and projected water levels on the Gatun Lake, a chokepoint on the canal system, following heavy rain in the canal watershed.

Drought restrictions had been imposed in the middle of last year, leading to long vessel queues with more than 100 ships waiting to transit the waterway in August.

“ACP may also increase the number of slots offered through auction, depending on the Gatun Lake’s level projections,” the authority said in a statement.

That comes as queue waiting times for both northbound and southbound transits for non-booked vessels are down to less than a day, ACP figures showed Friday. That is a significant improvement from February, when the average wait time for ships without bookings was five days for northbound vessels and four days for southbound vessels.

Some 49 ships, including 41 that have transit bookings, were waiting to pass through the canal Friday, according to ACP data.

Source:

Wallis, K. (2024, April 5). Maersk to resume Panama Canal transits on OC1 service as vessel restrictions ease. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/maersk-resume-panama-canal-transits-oc1-service-vessel-restrictions-ease_20240405.html

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Baltimore preps for limited port reopening by end of April

The Port of Baltimore is preparing workarounds to start handling containers and other ocean freight on a limited basis within the next four weeks ahead of a planned full reopening to vessel traffic by the end of May. The expedited reopening marks a rapid recovery for Baltimore following the vessel collision and bridge collapse that closed its main shipping channel early last week.

Meanwhile, other ports along the US East Coast continue to process diverted Baltimore-bound cargo with little to no impact on their operations. Even so, ocean carriers are pushing diversion-related fees onto shippers during Baltimore’s closure.

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) said in a statement Thursday it expects to clear the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge from Baltimore’s 50-foot-deep shipping channel by the end of May, “restoring port access to normal capacity.”

It was unclear in the immediate aftermath of the March 26 collision of the 9,962-TEU Dali into the bridge how long it would take for the port to reopen. Gen. Scott Spellmon said in the statement the USACE now has “a better understanding of the immense and complex work” of removing the 4,000 tons of debris resting on top of the Dali, allowing it to be refloated.

“A fully opened federal channel remains our primary goal,” Spellmon said. “These are ambitious timelines that may still be impacted by significant adverse weather conditions or changes in the complexity of the wreckage.”

Ahead of the full reopening, the USACE said it will open a 35-foot-deep channel by the end of April that will support one-way vessel traffic into Baltimore harbor. That channel will support the restart of a container-on-barge service offered by Columbia Coastal Transport that shuttles between the Port of Virginia, which has been receiving ships diverted from Baltimore, and Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore.

The service uses two US-flagged barges of approximately 900-TEU capacity. Transit time from Norfolk to Baltimore is approximately two days.

In addition, the 35-foot channel will allow some roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) vessels to resume calls at Baltimore. Baltimore’s Dundalk Marine Terminal and Fairfield Marine Terminal, which handle the bulk of the Baltimore’s ro/ro vessels, are also cut off to vessel traffic, forcing ro/ro vessels to divert to the TradePoint Atlantic logistics facility located outside the port’s inner harbor.

The container-on-barge service would complement inter-port rail services that are moving Baltimore-bound ocean containers diverted to the Port of New York and New Jersey back to Seagirt for local pickup. Norfolk Southern is working on a similar service that will bring ocean containers to Virginia’s Front Royal inland port, where they can be trucked into Maryland.

Details please refer to JOC news.

Source:

Angell, M. (2024, April 5). Baltimore preps for limited port reopening by end of April. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/baltimore-preps-limited-port-reopening-end-april_20240405.html

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Red Sea crisis prompts THE Alliance to delay restart of Asia-USEC service

THE Alliance on Wednesday said it was postponing the planned restart of a service between Asia and the US East Coast due to the ongoing threats against vessels transiting the Red Sea. The decision underscores that ship diversions around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope will likely last through at least the first half of 2024, if not longer.

Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express (ONE) said in a statement that THE Alliance’s East Coast 4 (EC4) service from Asia will not restart as previously announced. The service was suspended last year due to plummeting freight rates.

The first voyage on the restarted EC4 from Taiwan’s Kaohsiung port was scheduled for mid-April on the 14,080-TEU YM Warmth, which was expected to arrive at the Port of Norfolk on May 25. The EC4 service spans ports in Taiwan, southern China, Vietnam and Singapore, with US calls at Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston and New Jersey.

The carriers said the EC4, which transited the Suez Canal on its westbound voyage leg, will be postponed “until the situation in the Red Sea has stabilized.”

The 13 vessels in the EC4 service will be deployed to THE Alliance’s three other Asia-US East Coast services, which will each add other Asian and US port calls in the absence of the EC4 service.

Increased naval presence

Just since March 1, there have been 11 attacks against commercial ships transiting the Red Sea in the vicinity of Yemen, according to the Royal Navy’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Houthi militants operating in Yemen have been launching regular attacks on vessels since last November, forcing ships to divert around southern Africa.

The attacks come despite an increase in Western naval presence in the Red Sea aimed at thwarting the Houthis. The European Union announced a combined naval operation called “Aspides” that began in mid-February, joining the US Navy-led Operation Prosperity Garden.

Even with the increased naval presence, Houthi militants have successfully sunk two ships in that period, the general cargo ship Rubymar and the bulk carrier True Confidence, the latter resulting in the deaths of three seafarers on March 7. In response, international seafarers’ unions designated the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden as “warlike” areas and called on all carriers to avoid transits there.

Along with THE Alliance, Maersk said in a March 22 customer advisory that it has no plans to resume Suez Canal transits because “the risk level in the region remains elevated.”

Source:

Angell, M. (2024a, April 3). Red Sea crisis prompts the alliance to delay restart of Asia-USEC service. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/red-sea-crisis-prompts-alliance-delay-restart-asia-usec-service_20240403.html

/ By marketupdate / news/ • / 0 Comments

Lack of progress in Canadian rail talks raises possibility of May strike

A stalemate over a new collective bargaining agreement for Canadian rail conductors and engineers has set the stage for vote by union members that could result in a strike notice being issued next month.

The workers, represented by the Teamsters Canadian Rail Conference (TCRC), will vote from April 8 to May 1 on whether to authorize a strike against Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) as soon as May 22.

A strike could halt intermodal service to and from all containerized marine terminals in Canada, affecting about 50,000 TEUs per week in imports, according to a Journal of Commerce analysis of data submitted to the Association of American Railroads and Intermodal Association of North America.

Negotiations between the railroads and the TCRC have hit a stumbling block over salary and mandatory rest periods. The Teamsters represent more than 9,000 conductors and engineers — 6,000 at CN and 3,200 at CPKC.

“With the prior collective bargaining agreement, we took one step forward,” a TCRC spokesperson told the Journal of Commerce. “Now our sense of the negotiations is that both rail companies are trying to take us three steps backwards.”

Talks between the sides are continuing with a federal conciliator who can broker a deal up until May 1, when a 21-day cooling off period begins before any strike could occur. The union would then have to issue a 72-hour strike notice to the two Canadian railroads.

CN and CPKC say they have made proposals varying in length that will ensure conductors and engineers receive competitive wages, are well rested and have a proper work-life balance.

“[Our offer will provide for] higher income and more predictable work-life balance by shifting to a predictable scheduling model with assigned days off,” a CPKC spokesperson told the Journal of Commerce. “The time-based model would modernize the collective agreement with 21st century practices … The existing collective agreement is more than 440 pages; it could be reduced to approximately 100 pages.”

CPKC has two offers on the table: one that would simplify the prior collective bargaining agreement and a second offer that would “maintain the status of the quo” within rules established last year by Transport Canada.

CN also offered a deal to switch salary from a per-mile basis to an hourly wage.

“If our trains run on a schedule and our interactions with our customers run on a schedule, why shouldn’t employees benefit from running on a schedule as well?” a spokesperson for CN said. “We believe that by offering stable and predictable schedules with wage increases that would be paid hourly, we would be improving the quality of life of our railroaders and improve safety.

“Furthermore, by moving to scheduled work, employees would know well in advance when they work and when they take time off,” the spokesperson added.

Details please refer to JOC news.

Source:

Ashe, A. (2024a, April 2). Lack of progress in Canadian rail talks raises possibility of may strike. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/lack-progress-canadian-rail-talks-raises-possibility-may-strike_20240402.html