A new non-profit, grassroots co-operative that will run a regional grain collection and transportation network could be in place within a matter of weeks.
A memorandum of understanding signed last week by CN Rail and one of its unions sets a deadline of March 15 to create an organization of workers, farmers and local communities that would then attempt to negotiate a detailed operating agreement with CN.
“I’m extremely confident,” said Gary Housch, vice-president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees. “It’s an idea whose time has come.”
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The memorandum, signed by CN and the BMWE in Montreal Jan. 25, outlines how the proposed system would work:
- CN would lease to the group on a long-term basis four specific branch line networks in Saskatchewan – the Mantario/Conquest lines in west-central Saskatchewan, the Robinhood/Turtleford lines in the northwest, the Tisdale/Turnberry lines in the northeast and the Cudworth line just east of Saskatoon.
- CN will be “flexible” in transferring employees to the co-operative and maintaining collective agreements.
- The two parties will negotiate by May 1, 2001, a binding MOU outlining a commercial operating agreement, including such things as the lines to be leased, detailed financial arrangements, performance criteria and interchange agreements.
- CN will retain ownership of the lines, but the new co-op will be responsible for their operation and maintenance. CN is willing to operate the lines during a transition period of up to one year.
Housch, who has been instrumental in devising and promoting the plan, said it’s in the interests of everybody involved to make the project succeed.
“We all lose if those lines disappear,” he said. “Farmers lose, communities lose and workers lose.”
The union and a group of farmers and community leaders have been working on the project for the past couple of years under the name Prairie Alliance for the Future. The idea is to create a farmer-controlled entity that will collect grain, put it on rail cars and ship it to export terminals or other end-users.
Service at cost
Housch said a key feature will be the non-profit
nature of the new organization, which will provide service at cost.
“I think we need to start thinking about serving the farm community without trying to return 20 percent to the shareholders,” he said. “It just makes so much more sense.”
Housch acknowledged that some grain farmers haven’t been the biggest fans of labor unions, often blaming them for tying up grain during strikes or lockouts and criticizing the wages earned by grain handlers and railway workers. But he said the rail workers and farmers need to put that behind them and look to the future.
“We all depend on these lines for a livelihood and that ties us together,” he said.
The group is putting together a policy platform that will be run by a group of Saskatchewan academics for their comments and suggestions. It also plans to meet with local farmers and communities to talk about the project.
