[UPDATED] The union representing Canadian National workers has issued a strike notice to the company, effective Monday.
This comes after the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) said this morning that workers at Canadian National (CN) would be headed back to work today.
In the notice, the union said it did not believe contact issues were insurmountable and was available for discussion.
The union said this morning that workers at Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) will remain off the job “pending an order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB).”
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“Despite the Labour Minister’s referral, there is no clear indication that the CIRB will actually order an end to the labour dispute at CPKC,” the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) said in a statement this morning.
Yesterday afternoon, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon called a news conference to announce he would be forcing the Teamsters and railways into binding arbitration to bring an end to the lockout, which had begun earlier that day.
He told reporters he hoped railways would be running again within days, however it was the CIRB’s purview to call the shots.
Late Thursday, CPKC released a statement saying they were “disappointed” by what they called the Teamsters’ refusal to discuss resumption of service, and said they’d be meeting again Friday morning.
The railway said the union planned to challenge the constitutionality of MacKinnon’s direction. The Teamsters indicated on social media platform X that they were “consulting with legal counsel to determine the next steps,” but did not elaborate in this morning’s statement.
They issued a media notice for a rally outside CPKC headquarters in Calgary this morning.
