Union launches court appeal over government move to end railway labour

The union representing thousands of railroaders has appealed the moves that ended the rail shutdown last week — a work stoppage that halted freight and commuter traffic across the country.

In filings to the Federal Court of Appeal, the Teamsters union is challenging a directive for binding arbitration issued to a labour board by Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon following a lockout of 9,300 railroaders from Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd.

In response to MacKinnon’s instructions, the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered the country’s two major railways to resume operations and employees to return to their posts until binding arbitration could produce new contracts.

As well as the government directive, the union is also contesting the tribunal’s decisions.

Paul Boucher, president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, says the action set a “dangerous precedent” that threatens constitutional guarantees around collective bargaining.

“Without it, unions lose leverage to negotiate better wages and safer working conditions for all Canadians,” Boucher said in a release.

Industry groups sounded alarm

The railway companies, along with some industry groups, have said the minister’s move ended months of needless uncertainty and subdued supply chain turmoil after the Teamsters rejected requests for arbitration.

CN said arbitration is a neutral process “agnostic to outcome” and aimed at breaking an impasse.

“CN would have preferred a negotiated settlement,” said CN spokeswoman Ashley Michnowski in an email.

“However, after nine months of attempting to reach a settlement, it was evident that the Teamsters were not looking for a resolution and were happy to keep applying pressure by inflicting damage to the Canadian economy.”

MacKinnon made the back-to-work directive less than 17 hours after the lockouts — as well as a strike by CPKC’s employees, but not CN’s — took effect. He said the negotiations were at an impasse and Canadian businesses, job security and trade relationships were at stake.

Industry groups had been sounding the alarm for weeks over the economic consequences of a drawn-out shutdown. To ensure no freight would be stranded, CN and CPKC wound down their operations in phases, starting nearly three weeks ago.

Last week, traffic of cargo ranging from car parts to crude oil, consumer goods, grain and potash ground to a complete halt, temporarily upending supply chains.

More than 30,000 commuters in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver also found themselves unable to board passenger trains that run on CPKC-owned tracks.