Workers at the Canadian National (CN) railway will be headed back to work today, their union said, but workers at Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) will remain off the job "pending an order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB)."
As Canada braced for a freight rail stoppage that could hit industries ranging from autos to agriculture, the trucking sector said it faced higher demand it could not meet.
Nearly three dozen North American agriculture groups, in a joint letter to the U.S. and Canadian governments today, urged action to avoid a rail stoppage.
Canada's two main railway companies and the Teamsters union must do the hard work necessary to reach labor deals and avoid a full stoppage, federal Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon said on Monday.
Canada's freight rail network could come to a grinding halt this week, inflicting a huge economic toll after the country's two largest railroad operators on Sunday issued lockout notices to the Teamsters union that represents nearly 10,000 workers.
In the days since August 9, panic has begun setting in within the agricultural industry. The country has never seen a labour dispute that resulted in a strike or lockout from both of Canada’s rail companies. With harvest ramping up, a suspension of rail services would be disastrous for the industry.
North American industry groups and shippers are bracing for an unprecedented simultaneous stoppage at both of Canada's main railway companies that could inflict billions of dollars' worth of economic damage.
Producer and agriculture groups across Canada launched a ‘Stop the Strike’ writing campaign asking the federal ministers of agriculture and labour to use all their means to stop rail workers from walking off the job.