Colombia Coal Rail Workers Vote to End Strike; Union Says Vote 'Illegal'
Read more: Colombia Coal Rail Workers Vote to End Strike; Union Says Vote 'Illegal' | Fox Business
Im sure the Union calls the vote illegal, and it probably is. But it certainly is a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the union by the majority of its members. It will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the week.
Hundreds of employees of Colombia's main railway who have been on strike for three weeks, halting more than half of the country's coal exports, voted Monday in favor of ending the walkout and returning to work, the head of the railway said.
Nonetheless, labor union leaders late Monday pledged to keep the strike alive, calling the vote illegal.
Peter Burrowes, president of the Fenoco railway, called for the vote late last week, saying he believed the voting would prove that most of the rank-and-file rail workers no longer supported the union-led strike. The workers, he said, wanted to start earning a paycheck again.
In a text message Monday to The Wall Street Journal, Burrowes said that of the 624 railway employees, 347 sent in a vote Monday. Of those, he said 12 of the votes came back blank while 335 voted "in favor [of] arbitration, and stopping the strike and going back to work."
The company needed for more than 50% to vote in favor of ending the strike for it to pass, so the vote count achieves that threshold. Burrowes said the coal trains could start operating again by the end of the week, while an independent arbitration court would resolve the labor dispute that led to the strike. The workers were asking for higher wages and more benefits.
Read more: Colombia Coal Rail Workers Vote to End Strike; Union Says Vote 'Illegal' | Fox Business
Im sure the Union calls the vote illegal, and it probably is. But it certainly is a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the union by the majority of its members. It will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the week.