Canadian Pacific Railway's 3,000 conductors and engineers walked off the job late Tuesday night while a second group of workers reached a tentative contract with the rail company.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference said its workers walked out at 10 p.m. (Eastern) on Tuesday as negotiations continued with the company and a federal mediator. That announcement came minutes after CP Rail said a tentative deal had been reached with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for 360 signalling workers who were also poised to walk off the job.
The Teamsters union said in a news release that the strike began despite “best efforts to reach a negotiated settlement,” and that commuter train services in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are operated by Bombardier, not Canadian Pacific, and would not be impacted by the job action.
However, the strike has forced the railroad to shut down its freight service at a sensitive time for grain farmers. Their livelihoods were already threatened because grain shipping was severely disrupted over the past winter due to extreme cold in the Canadian prairies. The conductors and engineers voted 94% in favour of strike action to back their contract demands in April. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said his government will consider back to work legislation in the event of a national rail strike.
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