MONTREAL — So much for the idea that the Canadian rail labor situation had been resolved.
Canadian National Railway announced that it has received a 72-hour strike notice from the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which would launch a strike against the railroad at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 26.
CN had ended its lockout of TCRC engineers and conductors at 6 p.m. Thursday night, after Canada’s Labor Minister, Steven MacKinnon, announced he would order CN and CPKC to resume operations and send the dispute between the railroads and the TCRC to binding operation. The strike notice comes after the union announced early this morning that it would return to work at CN, but maintain its picket lines at CPKC, which has not yet ended its lockout pending an order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board [see “Teamsters Canada returning to work at CN …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 23, 2024].
Whether a strike actually occurs remains highly uncertain.
“The impact of this notice will depend on the timing of the CIRB,” CN said in its statement this afternoon (Aug. 23). “It is in the national interest of Canada that the CIRB rule quickly, before even more harm is caused.” CN also said the strike notes “confirms that the Teamsters never took the negotiations seriously and they had no desire to reach a deal.”
The union, in the strike notice posted on its website, says, “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 CBC reports that Teamsters Canada President François Laporte said this morning in Calgary that company demands would have broken the union’s collective agreement. “We believe in fair and honest bargaining and that’s what we want, we want a fair and honest bargaining with the company.”
Laporte and other union officials were appearing at a rally outside CPKC headquarters.
— This is a developing story. Follow Trains News Wire for more information as it becomes available.
