CP rail strike, unions and mgmnt

[bucket]

I find it unbelievable in a fragile economy that someone would go on strike instead of working.

What's even more confusing is how the management of this company that know full well when a contract is up, that they can't solve the problem before it comes to affecting the company's bottom line. Some negotiator they are, eh?

I always wonder what it would be like to run a company and watch a bunch of incompetent ****heads botch a bunch of liquid lunches (negotiations) to keep the company running smoothly.

The aftermath is that CP is now behind on deliveries, as if they were ever ahead, and won't catch up for weeks. Then the union says it has fatigue issues, no shit sherlock.

The blame goes to both the union and the company for being complete incompetent ****heads.

There are millions out of work in the states, that I am sure would love to move to Canada for a well paying job riding the rails and negotiating contracts.

Replace them all.

[ALLFARMER]

Ya Warren Buffet and Bill Gates love their
railway co stocks. These boys can't afford to pay
a decent wage. Hey let's get temporary foreign
workers in do the job for super cheap! Let the big
rich corporations decide the wage. You know just
like caterpillar did with the locomotive plant in
Ontario. Walk in buy the plant, demand everyone
takes a 50 % pay cut. This while cat's profits are
astronomical.

Interesting how the oil companies in Fort Mac are
75% foreign owned and want to build I pipeline
all the way to the southern states but the
government can't afford a proper divided highway
into the place. Ya they fund our health care
system but that highway to the oil is pathetic.

[cottonpicken]

There was a hostile takeover via proxy vote and a guy
named bill ackerman of pershing asset management
,a us hedge fund,went in and cleaned house.,fired the
ceo and a bunch of other directors.

They want major concessions in wages and pensions
and work rules.This may get ugly imo because they
are trying to take away things employees already
have.

[GreenValley]

Read paper somewhere. Investor or
shareholders want raise grain freight so
they can raise dividend or shares. Fire
them all shareholders or investors. If
strike that okay. Can alway blame
shareholders or investors

[grrrr]

It pisses me off that people don't automatically get a cost of living increase and that's it. If the cost of living increase is 2.8% then that is what they get at the start of every year, period.

[Hopperbin]

But CP officials claim their contract offer presented to the union is “fair and reasonable.” The Class I, which contributed about $1.9 billion of solvency deficit contributions to its pension plan over the past three years, requires changes to legacy pension and post-retirement benefits to make them industry-comparable, CP officials said in a prepared statement. Some proposed amendments would provide a guaranteed pension payment that is a multiple of average Canadian industrial pension payment and would exceed what the TCRC already has agreed to for the majority of its members at another major Canadian railway, they said.


solvency deficit contributions ??????
1.9 billion over 3 years for 4800 workers is a total of 395,833 per worker. Need more info

[Hopperbin]

The strike comes at a difficult time for CP, whose chief executive and chairman quit 11 days ago after losing a boardroom dust-up with the company's largest shareholder.

The shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management, has vowed to improve CP's operating performance, which is the weakest in the industry.


So Pershing Square Capital Management is telling CP how to run their business.

[Hopperbin]

On October 28, 2011, in a 13D regulatory filing, Pershing Square Capital indicated it owned 12.2% of Canadian Pacific Railway, one of the two major Canadian railways.[10][10] Pershing Square began acquiring Canadian Pacific shares last year and in October announced that it held a 12.2 percent stake, which eventually increased to 14.2 percent, making Pershing the railway’s largest shareholder. At a meeting with the company that month, Ackman proposed replacing Fred Green as chief executive. Just hours before the railway’s annual meeting on Thursday, May 17, 2012, Green and four other board members unexpectedly resigned, giving effective control of the company to PSCM. The new board is dominated by Ackman’s appointees.

[Hopperbin]

What do you think Cotton, is CP investment material today???

[cottonpicken]

Its a reasonable sector to invest in long
term,imo,looks like a correction should happen
someday,has moved quite a distance in a short
time,basically a monopoly that can control its rates
no matter what,unless its union can kill it,which
doesn't look likely with the full force of the canadian
government coming down on them.

Lots of rich people in the world probably called
harper and said end this now.

What we as farmers should have been doing is buying
shares for the past 100 years and voting as a
collective pool to keep us from getting bent over.We
are going to face horrible increases in shipping costs.

[Hopperbin]

Ackman runs Pershing Square as an "activist" hedge fund, meaning he invests in very few companies and plans to "actively" change them from the inside, by getting a seat or seats on the company's board of directors

Seems this is what he does and is good at it. So things should get interesting.

[Hopperbin]

I suppose Ackman is not good at everything.

Pershing Square IV was established to bet solely on the rise of the stock of Target Corporation. The fund fell nearly 90% in 2008 and Ackman apologized for the losses.[8] The fund subsequently rebounded. Ackman claimed in a February 2009 letter to investors, “Bottom line, PSIV has been one of the greatest disappointments of my career to date

His stock fell 90 percent but Target only dropped just over 50 percent. Thinking he pocketted some cash somewhere. I cannot find Pershing Square iv today. Or Pershing Square on the stock market.

[Hopperbin]

Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management (PSCM) has in the recent past acquired positions in Wendy's International Inc., McDonald's Corporation, J.C. Penney, General Growth Properties, Borders Group, Fortune Brands, Ceridian Corp and Alexander & Baldwin., pressuring the management of those companies to improve profits by selling either real estate assets or corporate divisions. The investment company in turn benefits when the asset liquidation returns capital in the form of dividends and a higher share price, whereby Pershing divests itself of its holdings at a higher share price. In the case of Wendy's International, Wendy's management bought back shares following the forced sale of the their subsidiary Tim Hortons through an IPO, while Pershing unloaded most of its own shares

[Hopperbin]

Hunter Harrison

Born in Tennessee, he began as a carman-oiler at the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway in Memphis, Tennessee in 1964. [1] He furthered his learning in the railroad business by first being promoted to an operator for that company and, later, with Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) as they bought Frisco's company in 1980. Before leaving BN, he became the company's vice-president for transportation and services design.[2]

First promoted to the role of president of CN on December 13, 2002, he was later promoted to CN's CEO position on January 1, 2003. He had previously served as president of Illinois Central Railroad from 1993 until that railroad's acquisition by CN in 1998; at that time, he was named CN's executive vice president and chief operating officer. Industry trade journal Railway Age named Harrison its Railroader of the Year for 2002.[3]

On November 30, 2006, CN's Board of Directors voted to extend Harrison's contract as CEO for one year, setting the new employment contract expiration date as December 31, 2009.[4] CN announced on April 29, 2009, the company's plan for succession in Harrison's position; he would be succeeded by Claude Mongeau effective January 1, 2010.[5]

Mr. Harrison was approached to take over as chief executive Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. by activist investor Bill Ackman


Bill Ackman stated on Squack box this morning that they intend to sit at the table to negotiate with the union, that the head of the union phoned Bill personally and gave him credit for the first 2 minutes of time because it was more time than he spent negotiating with the old CEO over a 6 year time span.

Hard to believe

[Hopperbin]

Just noticed with Ackman's medling in JCPenny JCP sales have dropped to over half billion less than the lowest point in past 10 years as he is trying to transform the companies immage to the consumer. Got balls but I think he is playing with other peoples money.