The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference says it has taken down picket lines at Canadian National Railway (CN) and its workers will begin returning to work on Friday.
However, the union says the work stoppage at Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) remains ongoing pending an order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
Following months of increasingly fraught contract talks, Canada’s two biggest railways both locked out workers after failing to reach deals with the union by a Thursday deadline.
The unprecedented work stoppage prompted federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to refer the dispute to the Canada Industrial Relations Board to impose binding arbitration.
The union and CPKC officials met with the board on Thursday and will meet again Friday.
CPKC said it was prepared to discuss the resumption of service at the meeting with the CIRB, but the union refused and wants to make submissions to challenge the constitutionality of MacKinnon’s direction.
CN and CPKC locked out 9,300 engineers, conductors and yard workers just after midnight Thursday, capping months of increasingly tense and bitter labour negotiations.
Jonathan Abecassis, director of public affairs and media relations at CN Rail, said that without an agreement or binding arbitration, the company “had no choice” but to lock out employees. CPKC also called for binding arbitration, saying the union has made “unrealistic demands.”
Less than 17 hours after the lockout began, MacKinnon announced he would use his powers as labour minister to step in.
Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code allows the government to refer a labour dispute to the Canada Industrial Relations Board to find a solution.
Cargo and commuter disruptions
Pressure from industry groups and provincial governments to resolve the conflict has been mounting for weeks.
The 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.
The impasse affects tens of thousands of commuters in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, whose rail lines run on CPKC-owned tracks. Without traffic controllers to dispatch them, passenger trains cannot run on those rails.
Industries affected by the work stoppage include agriculture, mining, energy, retail, automaking and construction. U.S. railways also have 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.