Education & Training

Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced today the body responsible for the third-party certification of electronic logging devices (ELD) under Transport Canada’s mandate has been accredited and is ready to begin testing ELDs to ensure their compliance with the regulation and technical standard.

With less than a year to go for the implementation of the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate, federal Transportation Minister Marc Garneau is once again displaying leadership on road safety by reminding the trucking industry and the Canadian public that the much needed regulation is well on its way to being delivered.

Seven years ago today, a terrible tragedy occurred in Lac-Mégantic. A train with 72 tank cars carrying 7.7 million litres of oil derailed and destroyed the downtown core of this small town in the Eastern Townships, killing 47 people.

Last Thursday, in Webb, SK, the C.P. Rail Engineering Health & Safety Policy Committee visited the roadside memorial honouring the twenty-two CP employees who died on May 28, 1980, to pay their respects. A moment of silence was held, and twenty-two flowers were laid in remembrance.

Teamsters Local Union 31 recently won an important victory for injured workers, especially truck drivers.

The Teamsters have written to the Chief Medical Examiner of Manitoba to request a coroner’s inquest into a September 15 derailment near Ponton, MB that killed a conductor and left a locomotive engineer with life altering injuries.

In September 2015, Teamsters Canada launched a national social media campaign called Make It Mandatory to convince Parliament to make mental health awareness and support mandatory in the workplace.

Teamsters Canada is satisfied with the Trudeau Government’s third budget. The union is pleased that the government is taking small steps toward creating a national pharmacare program. However, the government should increase infrastructure investments in coming budgets, and do more to help Canadians through the coming wave of automation and technological changes.

A labour dispute could soon break out at the Molson brewery on Notre-Dame Street in Montréal. At a union meeting this Sunday, members of Teamsters Local Union 1999 refused their employer’s offers for a second time. The workers then voted 87 % to authorize strike action.

Liberal MP Nicola Di Iorio said he believes that truck drivers should be required to undergo random testing for cannabis. The Teamsters Union opposes this possible measure not only because it would violate workers’ right to privacy, but also, because a positive test result does not necessarily prove that the person is intoxicated.