(Ottawa) The Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) on Wednesday evening threatened its employees with a ban from coming to work for the next three days if negotiations on the next collective agreement continue to falter.
Posted at 12:34 PM
CP, which is headquartered in Calgary, warned that this option could cause deep economic turmoil in Canada.
It will be triggered if the company and union cannot reach an agreement on collective agreement negotiations or if arbitration cannot be resorted to, according to a press release.
The business interruption “would affect virtually every product in the Canadian supply chain, crippling the performance of Canada’s trade-dependent economy,” warns CP.
In particular, the company transported more than 30 million tons of grain during 2020-2021.
Despite daily talks with federal mediators, CB said the two sides were “swinging apart” after the union rejected its latest offer this week.
Negotiations have been underway since September and include issues such as wages, benefits and the pension plan.
In early March, members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) voted 96.7% in favor of the strike.
The strike or shutdown will affect about 3,000 rail workers, including conductors, locomotive engineers, train attendants and yard officials.
In recent months, freight transportation in Canada has been severely disrupted by record flooding in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province.
In particular, CP had to close the railway for about a week.
At the end of 2021, it entered into an agreement with the US corporation Kansas City Southern (KCS) to create the first network linking Canada, the United States and Mexico, after a long battle against its national Canadian (CN) rival.
