One America News Network
One of Canada’s two main freight railroads received a 72-hour strike notice from a workers union on Friday, just hours after the company’s trains had resumed service following a potentially disastrous stoppage.
According to union spokesperson Marc-André Gauthier, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference filed a strike notice against Canadian National (CN) shortly after the company declared its intention to contest a court order forcing it into arbitration with the CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. railroads in order to end a lockout.
“This action will prolong the damage to our economy and jeopardize the wellbeing and livelihoods of Canadians, including union and non-union workers across multiple industries,” said Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in a statement.
Around sixteen hours after a lockout shut down the railroads, Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon said on Thursday afternoon that the parties would be forced into binding arbitration since the economic risk was too consequential to enable them to continue.
A week prior, he had expressed his hope that talks between the companies and the union would be successful rather than granting an order for arbitration.
“This is not about disobeying the minister’s order. It’s about exercising our right,” said Teamsters Canada President Francois Laporte on Friday. “We will our exercise our right within the legal framework.”
According to CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis, trains operated by Canadian National started running at 7 a.m. nationwide.
At first, the action seemed to have prevented a work stoppage that could have caused severe economic damage to both Canada and the United States, as many businesses in both nations depend on railroads to transport their goods and raw materials…
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