That is not good enough if somebody dies on that train that goes over the embankment.
I wish everybody was here to hear all the moans and groans at the suggestion that people could really be hurt. When a train derails that is a big deal because an awful lot of heavy metal is moving uncontrollably. How many have we seen this year alone?
I hear from my friends who deal with these issues every day that derailments have doubled this year in January. I know these have been read out but I want to read them again.
On January 4 in the Fraser Canyon a locomotive plunged down an embankment. Why are they not laughing? That is a funny line according to the guys opposite. They think a derailment down in an embankment is funny.
How about January 8, that was a real joke when 24 cars of a 122 car freight train derailed in Quebec. That is pretty hilarious.
How about March 1. Here is a real knee-slapper. A CN freight train derailed in Pickering. I will bet the people living in Pickering are not laughing very hard when they think about what has happened and what it means.
On March 4 grain was spilled near Blue River, B.C. I do not imagine farmers were very happy to see their grain going over the side, insurance or not.
On March 10 train traffic along Canadian National's main freight line through central New Brunswick was disrupted by a 17-car derailment. Although I know we have heard it, one still has to say it with amazement that for this wonderful accomplishment, this great safety record, the CEO of CN makes $56 million a year, more than $1 million a week.
My colleagues calculated it out. I stopped after I got to the $9,000 an hour part. Wait a minute. We have these skilled workers responsible for the trains in Canada. We have safety issues to the point where derailments are doubling and we are now putting populations at risk. We have a corporation that thinks its top boss is doing so well that he deserves $56 million a year to provide such fine derailments.
What is most aggravating about this situation for many of the workers and certainly for the union is the process. I mentioned earlier the final offer selection, the means that the government has put on the table, is not fair.
There are ways to settle disagreements and labour disputes that do not involve only two parties. It is not unusual to have a mediator play a role or a conciliator play a role and sometimes the parties will agree that they are so stuck that they need help. Often, to break the log-jam, they will send it to an arbitrator, make their case and then live by the decision. There are two main ways of doing that, interest arbitration and final offer selection, but there are others.
The difficulty with the one chosen here is that it is usually done where it is mainly money in dispute. One can bring in all the market comparisons, similar job comparisons, market studies and other collective agreements and one makes the case and then the arbitrator makes a ruling on what he or she thinks is fair.
However, in this case, this is where there are two complete offers on all the outstanding issues. The arbitrator picks one and that is it in its entirety or he picks the other one. It is win-win or lose-lose situation. It is not the best. If we had to go down a road that involves another party, would it not make sense that the process would be one that both parties want, not just management? We know management wants this. We know that the United States owners of CN want this but this is not what the workers wanted. All they want is fairness, so at the very least the government could have put in an interest arbitration.
Why does it matter so much? To come back to the bill that I was waving and saying that it was pretty thin but that it has great power, guess who gets to appoint the arbitrator? Is it the union? No. Is it the customers? No. Is the farmers or small business? No. The government appoints the arbitrator. The government gives all the power to the arbitrator. The government is on the side of its friends in big business. We know that. Somehow the government expects that the workers at CN and their families are supposed to believe that somehowm through all of thism they will get a fair shake. We do not see it.
Hunter Harrison, the CEO, made $56 million in 2005. He has made more than that since then I am sure. He gets $9,000 bucks an hour. The skilled CN workers, by an industrial average, make decent money. They have a lot of responsibility and have had a lot of training. Depending on their seniority and the job they do, they can make between $70,000 and $90,000 with some overtime. That is a decent wage, but it is not $9,000 an hour. However, it is certainly not too much. If my daughter is on that train, I want to ensure there are skilled workers who are focused on the job, who feel valued, who know they are professionals and are treated that way. That is the kind of person I want taking care of the safety of the trains, not people who feel they are being shafted at every turn by management, supported by their own government.
At the end of the day, this is wrong for the workers. Ultimately it is wrong for CN because it will allow it to continue to deny important maintenance money and other health and safety money as it focuses on the bottom line, not to mention ensuring that it clears at least $56 million so it can take care of the CEO.
The process chosen within this rather draconian bill does not even offer a crumb of democracy or fairness by picking a process that the union could at least live with even if it did not want it. Instead, it went with the final offer selection.
There is nothing here for the workers at CN except the spectacle of their own government turning on them, joining management on the other side of the table and denying them their democratic right to negotiate a fair wage for the work they perform on behalf of both their employer and Canadians in terms of the safety of the rail system in this nation.
It is a bad bill. We are proud to stand here and oppose it. It would be better if the government would take it back, fix it and bring real democracy, real choice and a final resolution to this, which would pave the way for a successful CN and a successful job creation world where people would feel safe. The bill falls far short of that.