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OTTAWA – CN railway workers have issued a strike notice for Monday morning pushing back against attempts by the Liberal government to bring the massive shutdown of the country’s rail system to an end.
CN and CPKC, the country’s largest railway companies, locked out their workers on Thursday bringing Canada’s rail network and the $1 billion in trade it carries daily, to a grinding halt.
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With the lockout less than a day old, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon intervened Thursday afternoon asking Canada’s Industrial Relations Board to order the parties into binding arbitration and have work resume.
MacKinnon stressed the board’s independence, but said he was hopeful they would quickly implement what the government had asked for.
“They are an independent body, an arm’s length body. They have a process that includes and requires consultation with the parties. They will be doing that and rendering a decision. I hope very quickly,” he said Thursday afternoon.
Both of the rail companies had previously proposed using binding arbitration to end the dispute and began work to restart operations immediately, but the Teamsters Rail Conference, who represent the workers at both companies, said MacKinnon had betrayed workers.
“The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference is deeply disappointed by this shameful decision,” said Paul Boucher, the group’s president. “The government took this unprecedented step, using this seldom utilized section of the labour code, only because they knew their minority could not gather the support needed to pass a legislated resolution to appease the railways.”
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While the Teamsters matched CPKC’s lockout with a strike notice of their own, they didn’t do the same with CN until Friday morning, issuing a strike notice that would take effect Monday morning.
Boucher blamed the railways for the work stoppage and said it could have been avoided.
“The two major railways in Canada manufactured this crisis, took the country hostage, and manipulated the government to once again disregard the rights afforded to working-class Canadians.”
The industrial relations board had yet to rule on MacKinnon’s request as of Friday afternoon.
In July, when MacKinnon’s predecessor Seamus O’Regan was labour minister he asked the industrial relations board to order binding arbitration for a dispute between WestJet and the airline’s mechanics.
The mechanics walked off the job anyways, because the board’s order didn’t specifically prevent them from doing so. The two sides eventually negotiated a new agreement.
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The Teamsters kept picket lines in place at CPKC while waiting for the board’s ruling. They have also said they are consulting with legal counsel to consider next steps.
Ravi Malhotra, a law professor at the University of Ottawa with a speciality in labour law, said ending the strike so quickly could be viewed as a violation of worker’s charter-protected rights to organize and bargain collectively.
He said whether a court would see the damage being done by a rail strike as significant to override that right is an open issue.
“There isn’t a lot of case law on these questions,” he said.
He said any legal challenges often fall to the side eventually, as both sides decide to settle the dispute at the bargaining table.
“Oftentimes in labour disputes, the legal answer isn’t necessarily the ultimate deciding factor. The parties, both sides, decide it’s better to just find an agreement.”
National Post
rtumilty@postmedia.com
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