Canada’s Labor Chief Gets Win on Rail Ruling; Stalled in Port Dispute
Two months after the Canadian federal government intervened in a nationwide railroad work stoppage, the country’s labor tribunal ensured that arbitration will take place to solve the labor dispute.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ruled Tuesday that it does not have the authority to overrule Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, who on Aug. 22, sent the stalled labor negotiations to binding arbitration and ordered a lockout of 9,300 rail workers to end immediately.
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Canada’s Teamsters, the union that had represented the employees who were sent back to work, challenged the board’s decision in federal court in the weeks after.
Seeking a new contract from Class I railroads Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC), the union alleged that workers’ charter rights were violated and that imposing arbitration strips them of their right to collective bargaining.
The union had stated in a letter to members that an arbitrator has been appointed and that the sides are working on scheduling.
The work stoppage lasted for roughly 16 hours before McKinnon ruled employees should go back to work. The shutdowns at CN and CPKC lasted throughout the weekend and capped off a two-week operational winddown from coast to coast,
According to the CIRB, MacKinnon was simply using his “discretionary powers” under the Canada Labour Code, and that the board had no leeway to refuse the directive.
“In the present matters, the minister was explicit in his direction to the board to order the resumption of operations and the return to work of employees,” the tribunal wrote. “He further directed the board to extend the terms of the existing collective agreements, thereby foreclosing the period for a work stoppage while also providing for the imposition of binding interest arbitration to settle the terms of the new collective agreements.”
For future scenarios where a federal intervention may be required in a labor stoppage, the CIRB recommended creating an “external and standalone body” to advise Labour Ministers on the best way to step in, including when to resort to back-to-work legislation, which they argued would be a more democratic forum than a sole cabinet member or executive body.
Both railroads, CN and CPKC, expressed in mid-September that they had recovered from the brief work stoppage.
As of Sept. 10, CN said the steps to implement an orderly shutdown “enabled a swift network recovery following the labor stoppage. Car velocity, train speed and dwell have all recovered, and the Company is now essentially current with demand.”
A day later, CPKC CEO Keith Creel said the “network essentially is caught up.”
Federal push to suspend overtime strike denied at Montreal port
Drama on the railroads hasn’t been the only concern for Canada’s labor head. Dockworkers and their employers at the Port of Montreal rejected a recent push from MacKinnon that would have put a moratorium on their overtime strikes for three months.
Last week, MacKinnon proposed to suspend the strike 90 days by appointing a special mediator. But in a post on X Monday night, he revealed that both parties have been unable to reach an agreement since the proposal.
“They must find a path forward towards a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible,” MacKinnon said. “Federal mediators and I remain available to assist them, and I will continue to closely monitor the situation.”
Roughly 1,200 Local 375 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) have not worked overtime hours since Oct. 10, pledging to do so for an “unlimited period.”
The strike is the second such stoppage for dockworkers this month, who also engineered an earlier three-day walkout from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 at the port’s Viau and Maisonneuve terminals. That one was more impactful, given that it impacted normal work shift hours instead of just overtime hours.
The dockworkers have worked without a new contract since Dec. 31, 2023.
When the overtime strike began, the Port of Montreal said the strike could result in processing delays and a backlog of containers waiting to be handled.
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