The Free Press, June 07, 2012

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FERNIE

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Sparwood students graduate

Firefighters learn rope rescue - Page A7 ARTS

Cat Jahnke visits Fernie - Page B7 SPORTS

Meet the new female golf pro - Page A3 INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Days Coal Miner

Students at Sparwood Secondary school enjoy the speeches during their graduation ceremony on Friday. For the full story and more pictures turn to pages B8 and B9.

Teck relieved to see trains running By Angela Treharne Free Press Staff

www.coalminerdays.co

Coal Miner Days Pull-Out

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June 9th 2012 11:00 am to 11:00 pm Fernie Secondary School Track

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T

eck Coal say they are relieved that the Canadian Pacific Railway strike has ended, but are not saying how much of a loss they suffered from the nine days the trains did not run. Although the Elk Valley mines were able to stockpile raw material to an extent, Teck will not be able to make up for the days the trains were not carrying coal out of the valley. Parliament ordered striking workers back on the job on Thursday night last week. “All is fine now and we’re back on track,” said Marcia Smith Teck's senior vice-president for

sustainability and external affairs. “We were down for nine days, so that definitely will have an impact but I don’t have those figures yet.” Smith said she will not be able to comment on the loss until the quarterly results are published in July. The Mining Association of Canada also said they are not able to quantify the impact yet, but agreed that its member companies, which include Teck, will have a backlog as they rely on rail to get supplies to work sites and products to market. "So a stoppage for a number of days like we've seen certainly has an impact," Paul Hebert, the mining association's vice-president of government relations told The

Canadian Press Friday. "There's no question there has been a cost but we haven't quantified it. We're very pleased that we're going to see a full resumption of service." CP Rail resumed operations across its entire Canadian freight network at about 6 a.m. Friday. The union representing the 4,800 strikers, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, asked its members to end their walkout after federal back-to-work legislation became law Thursday night. The workers, including locomotive engineers, conductors, yard workers and others, walked out May 23, forcing Canada's second-biggest railway to shut down freight operations.

The back-to-work law sends the labour dispute to a governmentappointed arbitrator, who has 90 days to impose a deal. The union said that while it disagreed with the law it advised members to obey it and report for work Friday morning. “We are certainly glad to see the trains running again, and have a very detailed plan worked out with CP Rail to try to get them running as normal again,” said Smith. Smith also said Teck did not lay off any of its Elk Valley employees or send anyone home during the strike. “Everyone kept working,” she said.


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