Canadian National Railway trains pass through Toronto on Tuesday October 18, 2011. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
In a first for Canada, freight traffic on its two largest railways has simultaneously ground to a halt, threatening to upend supply chains trying to move forward from pandemic-related disruptions and a port strike last year.
In the culmination of months of increasingly bitter negotiations, Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. locked out 9,300 engineers, conductors and yard workers after the parties disagreed on a new contract before the midnight deadline.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference has begun posting pictures to social media of workers from Halifax to Vancouver setting up picket lines.
The impasse also affects tens of thousands of commuters in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, whose lines run on CPKC-owned tracks. Passenger trains cannot run on those rails without the locked-out traffic controllers to dispatch them.
Pressure from industry groups and government to resolve the bargaining impasse has been mounting for weeks, with calls to hash out a resolution likely to ratchet up further now that the work stoppage has begun.
The two rail companies haul a combined $1 billion in goods each day, according to the Railway Association of Canada. Many shipments were pre-emptively stopped to avoid stranding cargo.
Parties bargained late into the night Wednesday at hotels in Montreal and Calgary before talks broke off shortly before midnight.
Each side has accused the other of failing to negotiate seriously.
Bargaining played out in separate negotiations between each company and the Teamsters, which represents 6,000 CN workers and 3,300 CPKC workers.
The Teamsters has said both companies are pushing to weaken protections around rest periods and scheduling, while CN is also seeking a scheme that would see some employees move to far-flung locations for several months at a time to fill labour gaps.
CN said it has negotiated in good faith over the past nine months.
“The company consistently proposed serious offers, with better pay, improved rest and more predictable schedules. The Teamsters have not shown any urgency or desire to reach a deal that is good for employees, the company and the economy,” CN said.
Affected industries include agriculture, mining, energy, retail, automaking and construction. U.S. railways have also had to turn away Canada-bound shipments.
Shippers south of the border also rely on Canada’s two main railways, whose tracks run to the Gulf of Mexico and, in CPKC’s case, to several Mexican ports.
Meanwhile, Canadian ports fear containers will pile up on the docks as cargo goes unmoved, causing congestion down the line and prompting some carriers to reroute to U.S. terminals.
This report by The Canadian Press
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