Labour disruption ends at Canadian Pacific Railway, which labour minister says ‘interconnects a wide range of businesses’

A short labour disruption at Canadian Pacific Railway Company – which Canada’s labour minister calls “a backbone of an integrated supply chain” – is over, with the union representing engineers and conductors agreeing to enter mediation and arbitration.

“The parties have agreed to a mediation and arbitration process to address all of the outstanding issues which had caused the strike,” stated Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, in a press release Monday.

Teamsters Canada represents locomotive engineers, conductors, trainmen and yardmen. Those employees are in a legal strike position but as of Tuesday are back on the job.

Canadian Pacific and Teamsters Canada “agreed to enter into binding arbitration, putting an end to the work stoppage by CP’s locomotive engineers and conductors,” Canadian Pacific said Monday in a release.

“One major issue is fatigue management and the necessity to implement broad based and effective fatigue countermeasures for the rail workers,” Teamsters Canada stated.

Transport Canada reports that Canadian Pacific accounts for about 35% of all Canadian rail transport revenues in Canada, while Canadian National Railway accounts for 50%.

Teamsters Canada said earlier this month that 93% of the Canadian Pacific Railway employees it represents voted “in favour of taking strike action in order to obtain a negotiated settlement with Canadian Pacific Railway.” A strike notice was also issued by Unifor, which represents 1,800 members who conduct safety inspections on all rail cars and locomotives, as well as maintenance and repairs.

A Teamsters Canada spokesperson told Canadian Underwriter last week that it was in talks with the employer, with the aim of reaching a tentative agreement by midnight Saturday night. That was also the deadline for Unifor’s members. Unifor reached a tentative agreement on Saturday.

But no agreement was reached with Teamsters Canada, so the Teamsters members were on strike at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

On Monday, the ruling Conservatives tabled a bill that would require the railway to resume operations, plus a time allocation motion for that bill. That bill was not put to the house for a vote on Monday.

Canada’ rail system “interconnects a wide range of businesses, including shippers, terminal operators, transloaders, port operators, shipping lines, and trucking, all of which are part of a very complex and complicated supply chain,” Labour Minister Kellie Leitch said Monday in the House of Commons. “Railway transportation is a backbone of an integrated supply chain that moves Canada’s resources all over the globe. Problems occurring in one part of the chain can affect all stakeholders. There is a domino effect.”

She noted Canadian Pacific transports industrial and consumer products, containers, grain, coal, fertilizer, sulphur, and automotive products.

Unifor said Saturday its officials “will now meet with local lodge presidents and workplace chairpeople to review the contents of the agreement. From there, ratification meetings will be scheduled in locations across the country over the next three weeks.”