TORONTO (AP) — The Canadian Labor Union announced a 72-hour strike Friday on one of Canada’s two major freight railroads, hours after the company’s trains began rolling again. Catastrophe stop.
CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. to end lockout The Teamsters Canadian Rail Conference filed a strike notice against Canadian National shortly after announcing plans to challenge a government order to mediate between the two railroads, union spokesman Marc-Andre Gauthier said.
Labor Minister Steven McKinnon announced the decision Thursday afternoon to force the parties into binding arbitration after 16 hours of lockout closures, saying the economic risk was too great to allow them to continue. He declined to order arbitration a week ago, saying he hoped negotiations between the companies and the union would succeed.
“This is not about disobeying the minister’s order. It’s about exercising our right,” said Teamsters Canada president Francois Laporte in announcing the strike Friday. “We will exercise our right within the legal framework.”
Canadian National trains began rolling across Canada at 7 a.m., CN spokesman Jonathan Abegasis said. The development initially appeared to partially avert a threatened strike causing destruction In both the Canadian and American economies, many companies and industries in both countries rely on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products.
Trains operated by a second company, Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd., were suspended pending the union’s challenge to arbitration.
Almost all of Canada’s cargo is handled by rail — worth about $1 billion Canadian (US$730 million) a day and adding up to more than 375 million tons of cargo last year — with rail shipments crossing the U.S. border halted on Thursday. About 30,000 passengers in Canada are also affected because their trains use CPKC’s routes. CPKC and CN’s trains continued to run in the US and Mexico during the lockout.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, billions of dollars in goods move between Canada and the United States by rail each month.
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Funk reports from Omaha, Nebraska.
