Canada’s railways were silent for a few days following the Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail stoppage.
On Thursday, CN and CPKC locked out more than 9,000 workers after negotiations with union officials that lasted nine months failed to resolve issues related to wages, benefits, and scheduling.
This was the first time that trains from both companies had ceased operations simultaneously, resulting in more than 100,000 kilometres of track lying idle for freight transport.
The federal labour board ordered the workers to return to their jobs over the weekend.
Premier Blaine Higgs was questioned Monday about his thoughts regarding the strike and says it never should’ve happened in the first place.
“This is an inevitable situation where it was going to lead to binding arbitration, so why would we impact to this point … knowing full well that’s the only solution at the end of the day,” Higgs said.
“I know the federal government may have wished there was a settlement but they’ve been negotiating a long time, so it was pretty evident that wasn’t gonna happen.
“We don’t need a rail distribution, it’s too much of an impact on the economy right across this nation, but we want effective bargaining capabilities, both sides deserve that, and so binding arbitration is the way to do that.”
The arbitration process is set to begin on Thursday.
