Rail workers are pushing back against Ottawa’s move to force binding arbitration, with CN workers issuing a new strike notice and CPKC workers initiating a regulatory challenge.
Operations resumed at Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) as employees gradually returned to their duties Aug. 23, even as the Teamsters union issued a 72-hour strike notice against the company shortly before 10 a.m. EDT.
The union is also challenging a directive for binding arbitration with Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. (CPKC) that was issued by Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to the country’s labour board. The union represents 6,000 CN workers and 3,300 CPKC workers.
An unprecedented work stoppage affecting both national railways led to an Aug. 22 request by MacKinnon to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to resolve the stalemate that has halted freight shipments and disrupted commuter services across the country.
The labour board summoned all parties to an evening meeting Aug. 22, followed by a morning hearing. The tribunal has said it is dealing with the issue “with utmost urgency.” CIRB is expected to give its decision later today.
MacKinnon has also asked the board to order the railways to resume operations under the terms of the existing collective agreements until new deals are enacted.
Teamsters Canada national president Francois Laporte spoke out against the call for binding arbitration during an Aug. 23 news conference from the picket lines at the CPKC head office in Calgary.
“As far as we are concerned, this is not acceptable,” Laporte said. “The best way to have a contract is at the bargaining table. We don’t believe to let a third party decide what’s going to be our working condition. This strike continues.”
Laporte was joined by Sean O'Brien, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
O'Brien called the lockouts by both rail companies “a disgrace.”
“If a strike happens or if this lockout continues, we will provide resources and we will provide bodies to make certain that we’re victorious,” he said.
Both CN and CPKC said they were “disappointed” by the union’s decision to initiate strike action.
“While CN is focused on its recovery plan to get back to powering the economy, the Teamsters are focused on returning to the picket line and shutting down the economy, impacting people and jobs across the country,” CN said in an Aug. 23
press release.
CPKC said the Teamsters’ refusal to discuss “any resumption of service” would affect the company’s “ability to resume serving the Canadian economy.”
MacKinnon, whose government had resisted earlier calls by industry groups to intervene to prevent a shutdown,
said on Aug. 22 that the government had to step in as the stoppage was impacting millions of Canadians.
“Canadians must be assured that their government will not allow them to suffer when parties do not fill their responsibility to them at the bargaining table, especially when worker and community safety is at stake,” he said.
The railway systems operated by the two companies haul around $1 billion in goods per day, according to the Railway Association of Canada. The CPKC shutdown has also disrupted the travel routes of more than 30,000 commuters in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
The union says the companies have failed to meet its demands on rest periods and scheduling, as well as ending a scheme that it says forces relocation to remote locations for several months to fill labour shortages. CN says the union has been dismissing its “serious offers” of better pay and improved rest and schedules, and CPKC similarly says its efforts to bargain in “good faith” with the union have been in vain.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
