Rail workers could walk Friday at midnight
About 300 rail workers in Medicine Hat could walk off the job at midnight Friday after their union served a 72-hour strike notice Wednesday, while the company says it’s hopeful an early-week offer will be accepted.
Meanwhile, grain and large chemical industry officials said any disruption would make what’s been a challenging year for shipping their products even worse.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, representing about 3,000 CP Rail engineers and conductors nationwide, cited a lack of progress at the bargaining table.
The company confirms it has received strike notices but says is committed to achieving a “win-win solution.”
It says it presented the Teamsters with new three- and five-year agreement options on Monday.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, with about 365 signal and communications workers, also served notice.
Absent a negotiated settlement, the unions say their workers will walk out at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.
Teamsters workers voted 94.2 per cent and IBEW workers voted 98 per cent in favour of strike action earlier this month.
“Serving a strike notice is part of the bargaining process that unions must follow if they want to be able to strike,”
“We remain committed to achieving a win-win solution and urge the two unions to work closely with us and the federal mediators to achieve a positive outcome as soon as possible in the hours leading up to the deadline,” said Canadian Pacific CEO Keith Creel in a statement.
The notice comes at a difficult time for the railway, which is under pressure from shippers to move backed-up grain shipments and supply more locomotives to the pipeline-constrained oil industry in Western Canada.
The company reported after markets closed that it earned $348 million in the first three months of the year, down from $431 million a year ago, despite slightly higher revenue.
On the labour dispute, Creel said he spoke with federal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu and Transport Minister Marc Garneau on Wednesday and said they are hopeful a deal can be worked out to prevent a work stoppage that would hurt Canada’s economy.
The railroad is seeking a fair and balanced contract with its workers, he said, adding CP Rail won’t sign a “bad short-term deal.”
Commodity shippers fear further disruptions in getting their products to market if the strikes go ahead.
“A strike would just be another nail in the coffin of another really bad year for shipping,” said Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
“All winter, the railways were only delivering about 40 per cent of the cars that were requested for shipping grain so there’s a tremendous backlog of grain in the system right now.”
He said some farmers are running short of cash because their crops aren’t being sold, adding the glut from a nearrecord crop last summer could last until next fall and cause problems with this year’s crop sales.
Rail shipping of grain has been better recently, but still not satisfactory, with shippers reporting Canadian National Railway supplied cars for 83 per cent of demand while CP Rail rated 53 per cent in the week of April 2-8, according to Pulse Canada, a member of the Ag Transport Coalition.
A CP Rail work stoppage would also be “extremely detrimental” to the member companies of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada who rely on rail to ship about 80 per cent of their products, CEO Bob Masterson said in an open letter to Hajdu.