About 250 local members of Teamsters Rail Conference in Medicine Hat were locked out on Wednesday night as CPKC and the union failed to come to a last minute agreement to prevent a work stoppage. Picketing commenced along North Railway Street on Thursday and will continue for the duration of the shutdown, local union officials told the News. -- News photo Collin Gallant, August 22, 2024
Medicine Hat News
About 250 local members of Teamsters Rail Conference in Medicine Hat were locked out on Wednesday night as CPKC and the union failed to come to a last minute agreement to prevent a work stoppage. Picketing commenced along North Railway Street near the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway marshalling yard on Thursday and will continue for the duration of the shutdown, local union officials told the News.
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 failed to agree on a new contract before the midnight deadline.
The impasse also affects tens of thousands of commuters in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, whose lines run on CPKC-owned tracks. Without traffic controllers to dispatch them, passenger trains cannot run on those rails.
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 the work stoppage has begun.
Canadian government officials are meeting urgently after both of Canada’s major freight railroads came to a full stop because of a contract dispute with their workers.
The impasse could bring significant economic harm to businesses and consumers in Canada and the U.S. if the trains don’t resume running soon. Government officials have put pressure on the parties to settle but haven’t forced arbitration. Canadian National and CPKC railroads both locked out their employees after the deadline of 10:01 p.m. MDT Wednesday passed without new agreements with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference.
Contract talks are set to resume Thursday morning
— With Files from the Canadian Press
