CN's Canada-based train dispatchers ratify two-year contract extension.

MONTREAL -- CN and the union representing the railway's Canada-based rail traffic controllers (train dispatchers) announced today the ratification of a two-year contract extension by the union's members.

CN's three-year agreement with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference/Rail Canada Traffic Controllers (TCRC/RCTC), previously set to expire at the end of 2006, is now a five-year pact running through Dec. 31, 2008.

The contract extension will provide TCRC/RCTC members with improved wages and benefits effective Jan. 1, 2007. TCRC/RCTC members are based in Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton.

Jim Ruddick, RCTC general chair, said: "This contract extension provides our members with longer term stability and is in step with the five-year labour contracts ratified earlier this month by the Canada-based locomotive engineers represented by the TCRC at CN."

Kim Madigan, CN's vice-president of labour relations, said: "CN believes five-year labour contracts allow management and labour to take a longer-term view of the enterprise. This bodes well for our railway business and the labour relations climate at CN."

Canadian National Railway Company spans Canada and mid-America, from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the key cities of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., Green Bay, Wis., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, St. Louis, and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America.

Canadian National Railway Company (TSX:CNR) (NYSE:CNI)