Rail labour dispute | CCRI listens to Ottawa and forces a return to work

(Montreal and Ottawa) The country’s two major railways will be able to resume normal service after an administrative tribunal ruled that some 9,500 workers were ordered back to work, as requested by the Trudeau government. But their union has not had its final say. The decision will be challenged in Federal Court.

In a unanimous decision rendered early Saturday evening, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) implemented the demands made Thursday by federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon.

The union members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) must therefore return to work at midnight and one minute on August 26, and until the mandate of an arbitrator – who will have the mandate to rule on new collective agreements – is completed. The union quickly made it known that it will comply with this directive.

In the meantime, employment contracts that expired since December 31 between locomotive engineers, mechanics and yard employees of the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) will be extended until the conclusion of the arbitrator’s mandate.

In its decision, the CCRI suggests that its hands were somehow tied and that it could not rule on the constitutionality of Minister MacKinnon’s directives.

“Given the clear wording of Article 107 of the Code [canadien du travail]the Council concluded that it does not have the discretion or ability to refuse to implement, in whole or in part, the Minister’s directives or to vary their terms,” ​​it reads.

Fearing the disastrous consequences of the shutdown of rail transport in the country, Minister MacKinnon invoked a section of the Canada Labour Code on Thursday to demand that the two railway companies resume operations and impose binding arbitration on the various parties — a process that will begin on August 29. Each side accused the other of not negotiating seriously. Wages and hours were among the main sticking points.

In a statement on the X network, the Minister of Labour said he expected “rail companies and their employees to resume operations as soon as possible.”

Duel to finish

Recalling that the CFTC would turn to the Federal Court, its president, Paul Boucher, affirmed that the decision of the CCRI would create a “dangerous precedent”.

“Now all big business has to do is shut down for a few hours, inflict short-term economic damage, and the government will step in and break a union,” he said. “The rights of Canadian workers have been significantly reduced today.”

By turning to the Federal Court, Teamsters Canada will thus force the court to decide on the constitutionality of the Trudeau government’s maneuver. In other words, it will be necessary to deal with the issue on its merits. In the short term, the CIRB decision puts an end to the labor dispute that briefly paralyzed CN and CPKC.

“We feel that the court has empathy for the union cause,” emphasizes lawyer Marc Boudreau, of the firm Marceau & Boudreau, specializing in labor law, after reading the decision. “But the CCRI concludes that it has no choice and that it must carry out the mandate given by the minister.”

M^e Boudreau is not surprised to see Teamsters Canada opt to litigate the case. It remains to be seen how long it will take for the Federal Court to decide. Since 2015, the right to strike has enjoyed constitutional protection following the Saskatchewan decision by the Supreme Court of Canada.

CN, which restarted its network Friday morning after lifting its lockout, will continue to accelerate the pace of its recovery.

“This means that the strike notice [prévu pour lundi, 10 heures] “The contract recently submitted to CN by the Teamsters is now invalidated,” said the Montreal-based rail carrier.

For its part, the CPKC plans to resume its activities from Monday.

Essential links

Freight shipments and some major commuter rail lines across Canada were paralyzed when CN and CPKC locked out workers after months of increasingly acrimonious contract negotiations failed to produce a deal. It was the first time there had been simultaneous work stoppages on the railways.

The conflict brought a rail network of more than 35,000 km from coast to coast to coast to a standstill. The value of goods that pass through CN and CP railcars, based in Montreal and Calgary respectively, is approximately $1 billion, according to the Railway Association of Canada.

The pressure for rapid action was considerable, coming not only from across the country but also from the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner, which was concerned about the negative impact on its economy.

More questions

In the case of Exo, three of the network’s train lines are suspended in the Montreal region, namely those of Vaudreuil/Hudson, Saint-Jérôme and Candiac. Trains running on the CN network, namely the Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Mascouche lines, are maintaining normal service.

Exo spokesperson Catherine Maurice said the timeline for resuming services remains unknown. “We hope to resume service as quickly as possible to minimize the impact on our customers. In the absence of clear indications regarding the exact timing of the resumption, our teams continue to prepare to deploy the additional dedicated shuttle buses on Monday,” she said.

She specified that before resuming service, Exo teams must carry out certain maneuvers to reposition the trains. “These maneuvers could take time given the rail congestion linked to the resumption and will depend on the priority that CPKC will give to passenger trains. We will inform customers as soon as we are able to decide on the modalities and the time of resumption of service.”

With Quentin Dufranne and The Canadian Press