The BLET may be facing payment of tens of millions of dollars to Conductors on VIA Rail in Canada, after the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal last week upheld a previous ruling of the Canada Industrial Relations Board that the BLE “failed to uphold a reasonable standard of competence” in representing the interests of those Conductors after making specific promises to them during a representation election on VIA Rail in 1997.

During the court proceedings, BLET argued that those promises were nothing more than “campaign rhetoric” for which they could not be held accountable, and that there could be “no reasonable expectation” on the part of the affected UTU members that they would actually obtain what had been promised during the election. Rail workers everywhere should take note of these findings, especially in light of the promises BLET is currently making as they attempt to raid UTU membership.

Both the CIRB and the CFCA have now blasted BLE’s behavior in the VIA Rail debacle, calling their actions “reckless” and holding that BLE representatives were guilty of collusion in combining their efforts with VIA Rail management to deny those Conductors access to newly created locomotive engineer positions as promised. The actual compensation that BLET and VIA Rail must pay those adversely affected Conductors is yet to be determined. Click here for further information on this matter.