Canadian union threatens to strike against freight railroad hours after trains resume service

TORONTO (AP) — A workers union on Friday threatened a strike at one of Canada’s two major freight railroads, only hours after the company’s trains restarted following a potentially devastating stoppage. Trains were expected to keep moving at least through Monday morning.

Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. locked out their workers on Thursday when negotiations over a new labor contract broke down. That resulted in a near total shutdown of freight rail in the country for more than a day, until Canadian National resumed its service. Trains operated by CPKC remain parked and its workers, who had already been on strike since Thursday, stayed on the picket line Friday.

The government has forced the companies and the union, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, into arbitration — an order the union is challenging. The union filed its 72-hour strike notice against CN on Friday morning shortly after it announced that it planned to challenge the arbitration order, said union spokesperson Marc-André Gauthier.

It was not clear if the latest action would bring CN trains to a halt again when the strike notice expires at 10 a.m. Monday. The whole matter might be decided before then by the Canada Industrial Relations Board, which is overseeing the arbitration. In that case, CN employees could continue working and CPKC workers could get back on the job while the union continues to challenge the legality of the arbitration order in court. All the parties had a meeting with the CIRB that began Friday morning and continued into the afternoon.

“We do not believe that any of the matters we have been discussing over the last several days are insurmountable and we remain available for discussion in order to resolve this matter without a further work stoppage,” the union said in its 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 the national interest of Canada that the CIRB rule quickly, before even more harm is caused,” the railroad said in a written statement. CPKC has about 3,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers involved.

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 wellbeing and livelihoods of Canadians, including union and non-union workers across multiple industries.”

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon had announced the decision to force the parties into binding arbitration on Thursday afternoon — more than 16 hours after the lockout shut down the railroads — saying the economic risk was too great to allow trains to remain idle. He had declined to order arbitration a week ago, saying he hoped that negotiations between the companies and the union on a new contract would succeed. A spokesman for MacKinnon declined to comment Friday.

“This is not about disobeying the minister’s order. It’s about exercising our right,” Teamsters Canada President Francois Laporte said Friday in announcing the strike. “We will exercise our right within the legal framework.”

Canadian National trains had begun rolling at 7 a.m. across Canada, said CN spokesperson Jonathan Abecassis. The development initially appeared to at least partially end a work stoppage that threatened to wreak havoc on the economies of Canada and the United States. Both countries, across all industries, rely on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products.

“While CN is focused on its recovery plan and powering the economy, Teamsters are focused on getting back to the picket line and holding the North American economy hostage to their demands,” Abecassis said following the union’s strike notice.

Getting even one of the railroads running again is a relief for businesses. In most past rail labor disputes, only one of the Canadian railroads stopped and the economy was able to weather that disruption.

The negotiations that began last year are hung up on issues around the way workers are scheduled and contract rules designed to prevent fatigue. The railroads had proposed shifting away from the current system that pays workers based on the number of miles they travel, to a system based on the hours they work. The railroads said the switch would make it easier to provide predictable schedules. But the union resisted because it feared the proposed changes would erode hard-fought protections against fatigue and jeopardize safety.

Similar quality-of-life concerns about demanding schedules and the lack of paid sick time drove U.S. railroads to the brink of a strike two years ago before Congress and President Joe Biden intervened and forced workers to accept a deal.

In Canada, another issue at CN is the railroad’s intention to expand a system that allows it to temporarily relocate workers to other parts of its network when it’s short on employees in a certain region.

Regarding wages, the railroads said they both offered raises in line with other recent deals in the industry for what are already well-paying jobs. Canadian National has said its engineers make about $150,000 and conductors earn roughly $121,000 for working 160 days a year, though some of their time off is spent stuck at hotels on the road between train trips while getting required rest. CPKC says its pay is comparable.

Nearly all of Canada’s freight handled by rail — worth more than $1 billion Canadian (US$730 million) a day and adding up to more than 375 million tons of freight last year — stopped Thursday along with rail shipments crossing the U.S. border. A number of smaller short-line freight railroads that handle local deliveries continued operating but were unable to hand off shipments to either of the major railroads while they were idle.

About 30,000 commuters in Canada were also affected because their trains use CPKC’s lines. CPKC and CN’s trains continued operating in the U.S. and Mexico during the lockout.

Billions of dollars of goods move between Canada and the U.S. via rail each month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“There are a lot of goods and services shipped across borders,” 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 then it is going to have an impact. ... They’ve got a lot of decisions they need to make. And they need to make the most important decision: Reward these workers with what they’ve earned and also don’t try to diminish safety just so they need to feed their bottom lines.”

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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.