Members of the Canadian Teamsters Railway Convention protest outside CPKC headquarters in Calgary, Alta., on Friday.
Jeff McIntosh/AP/The Canadian Press
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Jeff McIntosh/AP/The Canadian Press
TORONTO — A workers’ union threatened a strike Friday at one of Canada’s two major freight railways, just hours after the company’s trains resumed following a potentially catastrophic stoppage. A government-ordered arbitration hearing ended without a decision, and Canadian National trains are expected to continue moving at least until Monday morning.
CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. locked out their workers Thursday as negotiations on a new labor contract reached a deadline without a deal. That led to a shutdown of nearly all freight rail in the country for more than a day, until Canadian National resumed service Friday morning. Trains operated by CPKC remained parked and its workers, who had been on strike since Thursday, remained on the picket line Friday.
The government has forced the companies and the union, the Canadian Conference of Teamsters Railways, to enter arbitration overseen by the Canadian Industrial Relations Council — an order the union is challenging. The nine-hour hearing on Friday ended without an order from the council.
Union spokesman Marc-André Gauthier said the union filed a 72-hour strike order against CN on Friday morning shortly after the company announced plans to appeal the arbitration order.
If the board orders the union to return to work, “TCRC will legally comply with the decision but will take steps to challenge it at the highest level,” the Teamsters said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this will not provide immediate relief, but the Union is prepared to appeal to federal court if necessary.”
“We do not believe that any of the issues we have discussed over the past several days are insurmountable and we remain open to discussions to resolve this issue without further work stoppages,” the union said in a letter to CN management.
Canadian National, which has about 6,500 workers involved in the dispute, said the impact of the strike notice will depend on the timing of the CIRB’s decision. “It is in Canada’s national interest that the CIRB make a decision quickly, before further damage is done,” the rail company said in a written statement. CPKC employs about 3,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers.
Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the union’s latest actions “will prolong the damage to our economy and jeopardize the well-being and livelihoods of Canadians, including union and non-union workers across many industries.”
Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon announced the decision to force the parties into binding arbitration Thursday afternoon, more than 16 hours after the strike shut down the rail lines, saying the economic risks were too great to allow them to continue. The government had refused to order arbitration two weeks ago. MacKinnon said he was hopeful that negotiations between the companies and the union on a new contract would be successful. A MacKinnon spokesman declined to comment on the strike notice Friday.
“This is not about not complying with the minister’s order. This is about exercising our rights,” Teamsters Canada President Francois Laporte said Friday in announcing the strike. “We will exercise our rights within the legal framework.”
Canadian National trains began rolling across Canada at 7 a.m., CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis said. The initial development appears to have at least partially ended a work stoppage that threatened to wreak havoc on the economies of Canada and the United States. Both countries, across every industry, rely on rail to move their raw materials and finished products.
“While CN is focused on a recovery plan and boosting the economy, the Teamsters are focused on getting back on the picket line and making the North American economy bow to their demands,” Abecassis said after the union’s strike announcement.
Even getting one of the railroads back in operation is a relief for businesses. In most previous rail labor disputes, only one Canadian railroad was shut down, and the economy was able to weather the disruption.
Negotiations that began last year have stalled over issues related to how workers should be scheduled and contract rules designed to prevent fatigue. The railroads have proposed switching from the current system of paying workers based on miles driven to one based on hours worked. The railroads say the switch would make it easier to provide more predictable schedules. But unions have resisted, fearing the proposed changes would erode tough fatigue protections and jeopardize safety.
Similar concerns about quality of life due to grueling work schedules and a lack of paid sick leave pushed the U.S. railroad industry to the brink of a strike two years ago before Congress and President Joe Biden intervened and forced workers to accept the deal.
In Canada, another issue at CN is the rail industry’s intention to expand a system that would allow workers to be temporarily relocated to other parts of the network when there is a staff shortage in a particular area.
On wages, the railroads said both are in line with other recent industry agreements for jobs that are already well paid. Canadian National said its engineers earn about $150,000 and conductors earn about $121,000 for 160 days a year, although some of their time is spent stuck in hotels along the way between trains while getting required rest breaks. CPKC said their pay is comparable.
Nearly all of Canada’s freight transported by rail — more than C$1 billion ($730 million) worth of goods a day and amounting to more than 375 million tonnes of cargo last year — ground to a halt Thursday, along with rail shipments across the U.S. border. Some smaller short-haul freight lines that handle local deliveries continued to operate but were unable to transfer shipments to any of the major rail lines while they were idle.
About 30,000 commuters in Canada were also affected because their trains used CPKC routes. CPKC and CN trains continued to operate in the United States and Mexico during the shutdown.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, billions of dollars of goods are transported between Canada and the United States by rail each month.
“There are a lot of goods and services that are shipped across the border,” Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said at a rally in Calgary, Alberta, on Friday. “If this company chooses to continue its bad behavior, it will have an impact. … They have a lot of decisions to make. And they need to make the most important decision: Reward these workers for what they have earned and also not try to reduce safety just so they can make more profit.”
