The federal labour board has ordered thousands of rail employees back to work after a bitter contract dispute shut down the country’s two major railways.
The decision by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) imposes binding arbitration on the parties following a work stoppage at Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) that halted freight shipments and snarled commutes across the country since Thursday morning.
The ruling comes after federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon directed the arm’s-length tribunal on Thursday afternoon to begin the arbitration process, stating that the parties were at an impasse and Canadian businesses and trade relationships were at stake.
The Teamsters union challenged the government’s move, but the board on Saturday said the tribunal had no authority to decide whether the minister’s directive was valid.
The union, which represents the rail workers at both companies, said in a statement that it will “lawfully comply” with the decision but that it will appeal the ruling.
“This decision by the CIRB sets a dangerous precedent,” Paul Boucher, president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, is quoted as saying in the statement.
“It signals to Corporate Canada that large companies need only stop their operations for a few hours, inflict short-term economic pain, and the federal government will step in to break a union. The rights of Canadian workers have been significantly diminished today.”
Cargo traffic and some commuter lines across Canada came to a standstill on Thursday when CN and CPKC locked out workers after months of increasingly acrimonious contract talks failed to yield a deal.