Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by curves2000

This absolute massive railway strike is coming on top of a whole host of other major, critical infrastructure work stoppages very recently. Port strikes, West Jet strike, Air Canada strike coming most likely, CBSA strike action, airports paralyzed recently due to staffing issues, security screeners strike action, Freedom conveys blocking critical infrastructure and more.

The government is allowing these businesses like Westjet to buy up competition like Sunwing, allowing it's competitors to fail by not promoting options, allowing private equity firms to allow buyouts of such companies with no strings attached.

Enough business leaders across Canada and enough trading partners across the globe are looking at Canada and lacking serious confidence in our ability to properly conduct business.

So you want more government intervention in the private sector?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by curves2000

This absolute massive railway strike is coming on top of a whole host of other major, critical infrastructure work stoppages very recently. Port strikes, West Jet strike, Air Canada strike coming most likely, CBSA strike action, airports paralyzed recently due to staffing issues, security screeners strike action, Freedom conveys blocking critical infrastructure and more.

The government is allowing these businesses like Westjet to buy up competition like Sunwing, allowing it's competitors to fail by not promoting options, allowing private equity firms to allow buyouts of such companies with no strings attached.

Enough business leaders across Canada and enough trading partners across the globe are looking at Canada and lacking serious confidence in our ability to properly conduct business.

Perhaps Canadian corporations should wake up and pay their people accordingly if the global business community is questioning their ability to function.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Locke

Honestly man...I think you're kind of close, but not for the reasons you think.

If I had to guess, and mind you, this is purely a guess, I think our problem here remains inflation.

All of these places are Unionized and Unions operate on a fairly strict pay structure, and that structure isn't all that flexible.

So all of a sudden everything got really expensive, the cost of living is skyrocketing but these people are locked into their negotiated pay structures and their purchasing power is being diminished.

Costs go up, purchasing power goes down. Not a good place to be.

One thing is flexible and fluid and the other is not and that can cause problems.

And, while I have no love for the Liberals, some of it is their fault (over-spending, general theft, etc) a decent chunk of blame still resides with COVID.

So, in this case, the angry man shaking his fist at the clouds? He might not be wrong.

Cant' it be both?
Inflation + Covid + Lack of government oversight on our Airline/Telecom/Grocery/Banks in this country = Screwed

[GGG]

Could the liberals force the railway to end the lock out but not force binding arbitration. This would put power back in the hands of the union while kicking the can down the road. It would allow the union to have targeted strikes that affect CN/CPs bottom line but no the full scale shutdown of transportation.

[Manhattanboy]

Is freight by rail an essential service? Does that even matter?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Is freight by rail an essential service? Does that even matter?

I think the current liberal government defines essential service far too broadly . They legislated the post office back to work at Christmas. Mail is not essential in todays world the government just didn’t want to be accused of ruining Christmas

I’d argue as economically damaging as a rail strike may be it’s not essential as road transportation is a viable alternative for any goods that NEED to be shipped.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Is freight by rail an essential service? Does that even matter?

It was deemed non-essential at least in the warmer months

[Azure]

Anyone else find it wild that they can't reach a deal because of scheduling and safety concerns? If I were the rail line I would run to the bank with that.

Better scheduling would allow more people to enter the industry given its a good paying job. How would you NOT want to fix that and make it more appealing for workers?

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Azure

Anyone else find it wild that they can't reach a deal because of scheduling and safety concerns? If I were the rail line I would run to the bank with that.

Better scheduling would allow more people to enter the industry given its a good paying job. How would you NOT want to fix that and make it more appealing for workers?

Define better scheduling though, the railroads are about as close to optimal scheduling as they can be in their view. There is only a fixed amount of freight that can actually move every day and there are multiple bottlenecks (ie bridges) that cannot be easily fixed.

Every class 1 railroad runs under precision railroading which is basically a lean operating model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_railroading

The unions want more employees but the freight moved will be about the same. I don't that request is outlandish but it would require a wholesale change in management techniques so I am not holding my breath.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

This concept seems to be very challenging for some to grasp.

Because it's semantics.

Lockout/Strike effectively equals the same thing.

Yes, 'technically' the Company locked the employees out, but only because they were going on strike.

Because the Company isn't going to the Employee's homes with signs and lawnchairs to picket their front doors.

The Employer has assets and property to protect hence...locking Employees out who might seek to damage same said property and assets.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Bonded

Define better scheduling though, the railroads are about as close to optimal scheduling as they can be in their view. There is only a fixed amount of freight that can actually move every day and there are multiple bottlenecks (ie bridges) that cannot be easily fixed.

Every class 1 railroad runs under precision railroading which is basically a lean operating model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_railroading

The unions want more employees but the freight moved will be about the same. I don't that request is outlandish but it would require a wholesale change in management techniques so I am not holding my breath.

From my experience as someone who gets a lot of freight moved through rail, the scheduling is brutal.

We can have a rail car parked 200 feet down the road on an empty rail line, but it won't give moving 200 feet over towards our siding to unload because 'schedule.'

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Cant' it be both?
Inflation + Covid + Lack of government oversight on our Airline/Telecom/Grocery/Banks in this country = Screwed

Of course it could be both, and probably a smattering of other factors we havent even considered.

Thats the thing about Economics, its an ever-shifting combination of multiple changing factors.

Most of the time we just focus on the main ones.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Azure

From my experience as someone who gets a lot of freight moved through rail, the scheduling is brutal.

We can have a rail car parked 200 feet down the road on an empty rail line, but it won't give moving 200 feet over towards our siding to unload because 'schedule.'

We move about 2000-3000 cars a month on the CN and all they are looking at is network efficiency and velocity. They don't give two ####s about customer service. More employees won't mean better service, they'd need to invest in infrastructure and power as well to get really incremental gains on freight moved.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Bonded

We move about 2000-3000 cars a month on the CN and all they are looking at is network efficiency and velocity. They don't give two ####s about customer service. More employees won't mean better service, they'd need to invest in infrastructure and power as well to get really incremental gains on freight moved.

I understand that, and our 2-4 cars a month mean nothing in comparison to the rest of what they do.

I just know that their scheduling is terrible. Even for on time, whatever metric they are using internally to track it is not positive as far as we are concerned.

But its one of those things where everyone says 'oh its rail.' Trucking companies don't get the same pass.

[Azure]

NDP are saying they will vote against any back to work legislation.

The only thing that needs to happen is back to the bargaining table legislation.
Lock them in a room and tell them they're not coming out until there is a deal in place.
No washrooms either.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Locke

Because it's semantics.

No, it isn’t.

Lockout/Strike effectively equals the same thing.

Yes, 'technically' the Company locked the employees out, but only because they were going on strike.

That is completely false. In the case of CPKC the yes Union served strike notice, there’s no disputing that. However CN issued lockout notice as soon as CPKC were issued strike notice, there was no indication whatsoever that the Union was going to issue strike notice to the company, and frankly it wouldn’t make strategic sense to do so as they would be creating conditions that would be more likely to result in back to work legislation.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Azure

NDP are saying they will vote against any back to work legislation.

The only thing that needs to happen is back to the bargaining table legislation.
Lock them in a room and tell them they're not coming out until there is a deal in place.
No washrooms either.

They’re still at the table, not sure about the bathroom breaks.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Azure

I understand that, and our 2-4 cars a month mean nothing in comparison to the rest of what they do.

I just know that their scheduling is terrible. Even for on time, whatever metric they are using internally to track it is not positive as far as we are concerned.

But its one of those things where everyone says 'oh its rail.' Trucking companies don't get the same pass.

As a customer I agree but from their perspective the scheduling is just fine, I would guess your single car velocity is probably in line with whatever their metric is. Their goal is to spin as many cars as possible with as little power as possible. The railroads suck because everyone of their customers is captive. More employees won't solve anything scheduling wise without other large scale infrastructure investments that they have very little incentive to do.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

No, it isn’t.

That is completely false. In the case of CPKC the yes Union served strike notice, there’s no disputing that. However CN issued lockout notice as soon as CPKC were issued strike notice, there was no indication whatsoever that the Union was going to issue strike notice to the company, and frankly it wouldn’t make strategic sense to do so as they would be creating conditions that would be more likely to result in back to work legislation.

Yeah, guaranteed the unions would have preferred separate shutdowns

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Bonded

As a customer I agree but from their perspective the scheduling is just fine, I would guess your single car velocity is probably in line with whatever their metric is. Their goal is to spin as many cars as possible with as little power as possible. The railroads suck because everyone of their customers is captive. More employees won't solve anything scheduling wise without other large scale infrastructure investments that they have very little incentive to do.

It may be helpful for you to head down to one of the picket lines to ask these conductors what their scheduling is like. Having more employees available so that a company doesn’t need to rely on having people come in on their days off at overtime rates wouldn’t result in needing extra infrastructure, it would actually save the company money on labour costs since they’d be paying them at regular time instead of double time. Conductors being worked to the point of exhaustion should be concerning to all Canadians since these trains are being operated in our communities.