Rocky Mountaineer’s ongoing lockout of its onboard attendants highlights how weak unions have become in federally regulated arenas.
The luxury rail tour company locked out 109 onboard attendants 10 months ago, and, with its 2012 season set to launch April 24, there’s no end in sight to the acrimonious dispute.
British Columbia Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair told Business in Vancouver that the Rocky Mountaineer lockout is continuing indefinitely because the employer can hire replacement workers (“scabs”) – an option that’s prohibited under B.C. law for companies that are provincially regulated.
Unions in other federally regulated sectors have similarly had a tough time winning any concessions from employers.
Ottawa tabled back-to-work legislation last year to end Canada Post’s contract dispute with 48,000 urban postal workers.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt then made clear in March that she would step in to prevent any work stoppage at Air Canada while that airline negotiates contracts with disgruntled pilots, flight attendants and baggage handlers.
“Corporations in particular are feeling emboldened because the federal government is overtly landing on their side,” Sinclair said.
“This is a bad trend. It’s bad for Canadians, because they’re driving down wages and driving down pensions, and they’re driving down things that make life worth living.”
MPs voted in 2005 and 2006 to prohibit employers covered by the Canadian Labour Code from hiring replacement workers during labour disputes. But the bill died on the order paper both times when an election was called and the minority Parliament was dissolved.
Ian Robertson, Rocky Mountaineer’s executive director of communications, said his company has had no trouble finding people willing to work for compensation and benefits similar to what the company pays its onboard attendants.
According to Rod Blackburn, Teamsters Local 31 secretary-treasurer, those attendants previously started at $16.49 per hour, logged plenty of overtime and usually had to share hotel rooms during overnight stays.
Last year, his union local threatened to contact union locals around the world to start an anti-Rocky Mountaineer campaign if the lockout was not resolved by the start of the 2012 season.
But Robertson shrugs at that threat.
“They’ve already done that,” he said, “and it hasn’t had an impact on our bookings.”
Far from suffering a drop in business, Robertson said his rail tour company had more riders in 2011 than in 2010, when there was no lockout.
He declined to reveal exactly how many riders travelled on Rocky Mountaineer last year, but Robertson said the number was lower than the company’s record ridership in 2008.
He expects Rocky Mountaineer’s ridership to continue to grow in 2012.
“One trend we’re finding is that the booking window [the time between when guests book and when they travel] seems to be getting shorter.”
Rocky Mountaineer plans to attract new travellers in 2012 by rolling out a new silver leaf level of service between Vancouver, Banff and Calgary.
The company’s three levels of service include:
•Red leaf: passengers ride in standard single-level railcars;
•Silver leaf: the train’s cars, which previously travelled to Whistler, have larger windows and some dome windows along the roof of a single-level car; and
•Gold leaf: features a double-deck railcar with dome windows on the top level and a dining car complete with an on-board chef on the lower level.
Some Rocky Mountaineer passengers told BIV last year that they should have been allowed to cancel their trip and get refunds if they found out about the labour dispute after they had booked a Rocky Mountaineer vacation. (See “Rocky Mountaineer lockout at impasse” – issue 1142; September 13-19, 2011.) But Rocky Mountaineer continues to have a no-refund policy.
“It’s categorically wrong not to tell your customer,” Sinclair said. “People arrive and then they find out – after they come from New Zealand or Australia or Europe – that they have to cross a picket line.” •
