Canadian Rail Strike Update
Yesterday, we sent out a memo that the Canadian rail strike by Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) had started with a lockout of labor in the morning of August 22. The Canadian government has invoked Section 197 of the Canadian Labor Code and has directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to impose final binding arbitration for the dispute.
CN has ended its lockout and initiated a recovery plan that has the workers returning to work today, but some embargos that were put in place on some cargo earlier in anticipation of a work disruption will still be in effect. CPKC is challenging the directive from CIRB and has not ended its lockout. The current contract agreements will be extended until the new master contract is reached.
You can follow actions by the two railways at these two links: CN’s updates and CPKC’s updates.