June
6, 2007 Memorandum of Settlement
June
11, 2007
Brothers and Sisters,
Attached please find the Memorandum
of Settlement signed with CPRail on June 6th. I have
also attached the company's
previous final offer of March 23rd for you to easily
compare.
We will be sending out the ratification ballot this week with
a return date of mid July. I would ask that you print and distribute
the Memorandum of Settlement freely so that everyone is familiar
with it prior to receiving the ballot. The ballot will have a
summary of the memorandum as well, but we want everyone familiar
with the document so that we can get the ratification process
finished as quickly as possible.
As you will readily see, the June 6th settlement is far better
than the company's final offer which put us on strike. There is
more money, higher expense increases, better benefit increases,
work rule changes in our favour and none of the seniority/assembly
point or other changes that the company was demanding. The only
concession is the co-pay of benefit premiums which the company
was adamant about and which, in our opinion would have necessitated
longer on the picket line and probably would have been hard to
avoid if legislation had been enacted. Once again here are some
of the highlights:
-
Three year deal for 2007, 2008, 2009
-
Wages of 3% for 2007 retroactive to January 1st, 4% for 2008
and 3% for 2009.
-
An additional 1% for each year, paid lump sum semi-annually,
exclusive of wages.
-
Goal share of 5% max with stretch targets (no personal injury
liability) with 1% of it based on financial of company (non
incentive based).
-
Dental to be based on current year fee guides.
-
Expenses up to $38.00 per diem for meals, $95.00 for full per
diem and ad hoc
-
Shift differential increased to $.75 and $1.00 (from $.45 and
$.50)
-
Non conforming rest day special work crew agreement to allow
for 15.5% increase for all hours worked on these crews.
-
1.8 pension formula with no contribution increase.
-
B-1 mileage based on actual Kms (not 100 km increments) and
increased to 4 cents above bus rate kms.
-
Round trip airfare for TP&E employees from Maritimes.
-
$1.20 an hour increase for air brake BTMF section vehicles.
-
Life insurance increase to $150,000.00 for employees fatally
injured at work
-
1% increase for WH&S committee members.
-
Many Benefit and Job security increases and improvements
-
Many work rule improvements.
Remember, the March 23rd offer came after over nine months of
bargaining and 6 weeks of mediation, so there are some items in
there that we had argued for and had the company tentatively agree
to. However, it was unacceptable and as the company refused to
issue any official revisions (even going so far as to post it
on their website and tried to justify and sell it there) we were
forced into a three week strike.
When you compare the two documents, its easy to see that even
though we did not get everything that we asked for or deserved,
we did improve the settlement substantially while maintaining
our seniority territories and other contentious issues.
Stay safe, stay strong, stay united,
Bill Brehl
President
TCRC MWED
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