The Canadian National Railway union representing its workers had said on Friday that they would strike next week. This is a fresh threat to the Canadian economy after the workers have vowed to challenge a government decision to end an unprecedented rail stoppage.
The union— Teamsters— had filed a notice that conductors, locomotive engineers and other workers at Montreal-based CN would strike on Monday, days after they returned to work on Friday.
This recent announcement has brought with it, a new twist in a labor dispute at Canada’s top two railroads, which locked out over 9,000 unionized workers on Thursday, setting off a synchronous rail stoppage that business groups have feared could inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage.
Steven MacKinnon, the Labour Minister had remarked on the risk to the economy if the strike were to hold, asking the country’s industrial relations board on Thursday to call for an end to the stoppage and to also impose binding arbitration on the union as well as for CN and its rival, Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
Canada is the world’s second-largest country by land area and it relies heavily on trains to transport a wide range of commodities and goods. , Business and agricultural groups have harried Ottawa to act quickly to prevent the strike action.
The president of Teamsters Canada, Francois Laporte, has said that MacKinnon’s announcement was unacceptable.
The Teamsters had in their strike notice, said that they were still prepared to negotiate with CN over the weekend
