Transport committee  I spoke earlier, sir, about the need to get involved in paragraph 135(7)(e) of the Canada Labour Code, which is the employee participation in all investigations and inquiries. This is an item that is readily ignored in the safety committee atmosphere, despite the unions' wishing

Transport committee  I would point out that we have had a vice-president of safety before, back in 1996 at the very least, when Mr. Tellier was still representing the company, and a CN ombudsman of safety, although when Mr. Tellier left, so did those positions. If they're reintroducing it, that's te

Transport committee  I'd just like to point out that there's a fundamental difference between air and rail, in that air has a lot of competition and it deals with the public up front. If planes fall out of the sky, people will flock to another airline. If trains derail, for the most part the only o

Transport committee  I wouldn't say overtime. It is time. They are restricted from any time off with their families. It forces them to make a decision: “Do I go all out for three weeks to have a week off?”, and “Can I maintain my family's earnings?” Those are the factors.

Transport committee  Okay, well it's an off-the-cuff question, I suppose. It hadn't been thought of before, but a peer review or an experienced counselling of employees might work, which could lead to a just discipline system. By that I mean it may be not a bad idea to assign a new employee or a disc

Transport committee  Just discipline system.

Transport committee  You want a system in which you're going to learn from your experience and not just simply be removed from your career or your life.

Transport committee  From the transportation aspect, they mostly are new hires. I'm not speaking about the carmen and so on. There have been none since 1987. That was the last influx of employees on CN lines west, in any case. Now we have a new experience, and that's that our supervisors, our train

Transport committee  We spoke about perception earlier, and one thing we recognize is that perhaps Transport Canada's getting beat up by the RAC. They're being bullied if nothing else, and they have funding problems. We go to them with concerns, and they start mentally calculating what that's going t

Transport committee  We have a situation here where employees with long service are contemplating retiring the very minute they can get out of there, but they would otherwise have offered five to ten more years of service. They love their jobs, and they're good at their work, but there is this atmosp

Transport committee  I think you are accurate in your representation of that. We are in a reactionary position. The companies are the ones that dictate the policy, and we must react to it. So if it's us and them, then we're forced into that. It's not necessarily a position we want to work from.

Transport committee  Thank you. My name is Robert McDiarmid. I'm with the United Transportation Union. Incredibly, that represents, still, 2,800 members in Canada, primarily at CN Rail and also at the various short-line railways. We're speaking today towards the recommendations of the panel on the