Negotiations Training

April 12, 2006

Brothers and Sisters,

Last weekend, we attended our first ever 'Collective Bargaining' training session and it was a huge success.

We believe that to truly achieve the best possible contract, we must be the best that we can possibly be at bargaining. Fully prepared and educated, with the tools and the backbone to win the fight.

Therefore, with the approval of your Executive Board, a training program was developed with Leo McGrady, QC, the senior partner of McGrady and Company, a Union based law firm from Vancouver , BC.

McGrady and Company specialize in labour law and have never represented a company, only Unions. Leo is a specialist in Human Rights, Health and Safety, Labour Relations and employment law. He is internationally recognized as an authority on a number of labour and labour related issues and has taught at the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. As well as publishing many papers, he has also written law textbooks, and argued cases at all levels of the Canadian legal system including Charter/labour law cases at the Supreme Court of Canada. On top of all of his accomplishments, he is an extremely good friend to the TCRC MWED and gave an excellent lecture on Bill C-45 (the case book is on our website) and the "duty to accomodate" at our Convention in Calgary last November.

The Collective Bargaining course was prepared for our Negotiations team, as well as members of the TCRC operating division (representing RTC's, Engineer, Conductors and Trainmen) and dealt with all aspects of bargaining, including preparation, protocol, techniques, disclosure of information, duty to bargain in good faith, conciliation,completion of the C/A, pre-conditions to strike/lockouts, notice to strike, secret ballot vote, essential services, statutory freeze, illegalities, picketing, injunctions, the railway safety act, the criminal code, post strike re-instatement (amnesty), back-to-work legislation, final offer vote, replacement workers (scabs) and much more. All of which was referenced with dozens of examples and case law, from the Canada Labour Code, the Human Rights Act, the Charter of Rights, as well as Provincial, Federal and Supreme Court decisions. Needless to say, we crammed a lot into two very full days.

There was also quite a bit of very lively discussion, interesting and necessary, and I would especially like to thank Darrell Arnold (representing the RTC's), Doug Finnson (representing the Conductors and Trainmen) and Dave Able (representing the Engineers), as well as all the other TCRC members present, for their invaluable input and comments. I also want to thank the TCRC Executive Board and the rest of our negotiating team (Bill Brake, David Scott, Gary McDougal, Jim Daniel and JJ Spikula) for their attendance, input and assistance in getting this together and for making it such a success.

We were fortunate that much of the pertinent case law had been from cases that were handled by Mr. McGrady, but it was amazing how many of the participants were familiar with the cases studied or could offer experiences of like value. And some of the information gathered on the first day allowed Gary Doherty and Louis Wilson, (following our de-brief after the session) to go off and put in a labour board complaint concerning a bargaining issue on the HBR. They were then able to share this with the rest of the class on Sunday. Thanks Leo, for all of your hard work, your experience, your teaching skills and simply for being one of the best Labour Attorneys it has been my privilege to work with.

There were over thirty Teamsters from CPRail at the session and I think its safe to say that everyone, regardless of their experience in bargaining, left a whole lot wiser, with tons of reference material to prepare us for the fight.

I want to thank everyone involved, not only for this example of Teamsters Rail Conference solidarity (as the attached pictures show) but also for giving up their weekend to do so.

Education and communication will build the unity and skills necessary to bargain successfully. This, coupled with the drive to achieve fairness and justice at the table and in the workplace, will insure that we can deliever to you a proper contract, a contract that you can be proud of, a contract that will give you the respect that you deserve and a contract that will lead to even greater improvements in the years to come.

TEAMSTER PRIDE + TEAMSTER UNITY = TEAMSTER STRENGTH

Fraternally,

Bill Brehl
President
TCRC MWED