Brief Canada rail lockout ends with arbitration

What happened

The Canadian government ordered the country's two main freight railroads and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference union into binding arbitration, forcing an end to a 17-hour shutdown. The railroads, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Southern (CPKC), had locked out 10,000 union engineers, conductors and dispatchers at midnight amid an impasse in labor contract negotiations.

Who said what

A "prolonged shutdown could have brought severe economic repercussions" for Canada's "export-driven economy," The New York Times said. Roughly half of Canada's exports, mostly to the U.S., may have come to a halt, snarling supply chains and harming "several sectors of Canada's economy, including agriculture, mining, forestry, oil and manufacturing."

"We gave negotiations every possible opportunity to succeed," said Steve MacKinnon, Canada's labor minister. But "impacts of the current impasse are being borne by all Canadians," and the government has a "responsibility to ensure industrial peace." Teamsters Canada Rail Conference President Paul Boucher said his union is "deeply disappointed by this shameful decision," adding Canadian National and CPKC "manufactured this crisis" and "took the country hostage." The railways, which had asked the government for binding arbitration and been rejected, praised the decision.

What next?

MacKinnon said he expected the trains to start moving again "within days." 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up