WINNIPEG (Staff) – A spokesperson for a major rail workers union says it would be very difficult to declare grain handling and transportation an essential service.
Don Tennant, an official in the United Transportation Union, was responding to questions from the Western Grain Marketing Panel, which met here last week.
He said it would be hard to determine when workers are performing an essential service, since grain handling is only one segment of the rail system.
Different trades have different collective agreements, Tennant said, and it would be logistically and legally difficult to change them all.
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“You just can’t dovetail certain things,” he said.
Panel member Jack Gorr told Tennant that farmers who attended the panel’s town hall meetings frequently expressed frustration with labor issues beyond their control.
Tennant said union members don’t like to strike, but must keep the right to do so as “the tool of the ultimate last resort” when bargaining with management.
“If it’s such an essential service … then why would the people who work in that industry be required to subsidize the people of this country if it’s that essential?”
Tennant, a train conductor who also farms near Anola, Man., said many people in his union live on farms and in small towns. They are concerned about their own jobs, but are also worried about the plight of farmers whose grain they move.
He said his union supports the single-desk marketing system of the Canadian Wheat Board because it leaves power in the hands of farmers.
Tennant added his union is concerned about government deregulation in transportation and at ports.
