Council 4000 and Local 100 bargaining committee resumed negotiations this week from Monday to Wednesday with VIA Rail.
Council 4000 has significant work rules to work through, however VIA has served 4 estoppel’s and are refusing to take them off the table and both the Council and Local 100 are currently facing concessions. This is unacceptable to both bargaining committees and we will continue to pushback and have the concessions removed.
This week Unifor Council 4000 and Unifor Local 100 continued bargaining with the employer. The employer continues to push concessions onto our members. This approach by the employer has forced the bargaining committees to reach an impasse with the employer.
Because of the impasse, the Union filed a Notice of Dispute requesting the assistance of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
WINNIPEG—Nearly 300 Unifor activists from across the Prairies will march to Union Station demanding the federal government reverse its plan to privatize the VIA Rail Windsor to Quebec City corridor.
Unifor opened bargaining with VIA Rail in January 2022. To date Unifor Local 100 and Council 4000 has met with the company February 7 to 11 and March 8-11.
This morning, the federal transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced that the government is seeking private proposals to cover service for the VIA rail high-frequency corridor. The union believes this is the first of many steps to privatize VIA Rail.
Our members are not fooled by today's government announcement.
After opening bargaining with VIA Rail in January 2022, Unifor Local 100 and Council 4000 met with the company during February 7 to 11.
As expected, the company has taken an aggressive bargaining posture and tabled multiple serious concessions. It has become increasingly clear that this will be no ordinary round of bargaining.
In addition to our bargaining campaign, the national union, alongside Unifor Council 4000 and Local 100, has developed a multi-prong national rail campaign, "Get Canada Back On Track. Invest In Passenger Rail".
“This bill alone won’t solve all the challenges VIA Rail is facing,” said Scott Doherty, Unifor’s lead rail negotiator and Executive Assistant to the Unifor National President. “However it’s a long overdue step in the right direction and establishes a foundation and necessary building blocks that we can use to improve public passenger rail service in Canada.”
Canada needs to get back on track and invest in the future of its rail system.
The federal government needs to step up and pour some significant dollars into VIA Rail, Canada’s national rail passenger service, if it wants to build back better, following the lead of our American counterparts.
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