The Teamsters Union Division 855 president in Kamloops says there are about 125 CN workers locally on the picket lines.

They are part of 3,200 conductors, trainpersons and yardpersons across Canada who took formal strike action more than 36 hours ago, on Monday night.

Local union president Chris Parkins says there are about 250 staff at the CN railyard in Kamloops and says non-unionized workers are showing support for the strike action as well.

He says workers average 24-to-32-hour trips, and need to put in at least three trips to get their weekend.

“So at the end of the work week, we’re generally at 80 to 100 hours of work by the time we actually get a 48-hour span of time off.”

He says the union right now is trying to have positive negotiations with CN.

“We get minimal rest after our trips, so we’re trying to find a balance between fatigue management, keeping up with our families and our own personal lives. And it’s all about basic safety right now.”

Parkins says with the strike, only two-to-four CN trains are passing through Kamloops right now when there are 30-to-40 on a regular day.

“From what I’ve heard, they’re foreseeing that without the conductors they can probably move 60 per cent of their traffic. But in estimation of what we’ve seen in the past couple days… I can’t say they’re getting much product to the port right now.”