Mindful of the potential for snarls on their own tracks, Canada’s big two railways are monitoring talks between a clutch of major U.S. railways and several of their labour unions to avert strikes and/or lockouts that may begin as early as Friday.
As of Wednesday, three unions out of the 12 representing unionized rail workers in the U.S. have yet to reach tentative agreements with the bargaining group for U.S. rail carriers. A 30-day “cooling off” period between those three unions and the railways ends at 12:01 a.m. Friday.
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Just two unions out of the nine that have reached agreements have so far voted to ratify those deals. The results of six ratification votes are pending; a seventh union, the International Association of Machinists, said Wednesday its members have voted to reject the tentative deal it reached Aug. 29.
Canadian National Railway (CN), which owns a significant amount of U.S. track with employees represented by the affected unions, is a party to the U.S. railways’ organization for “multi-employer national bargaining.”
U.S. railways represented by the U.S. National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC) also include BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific — as well as Kansas City Southern, which is still in the midst of a merger with Canadian Pacific Railway (CP).
CP itself, however, is not a party to the NCCC and is not involved in those labour talks.
Thus, if talks between unions and the NCCC-represented railways end in a work stoppage, CP said Tuesday it “will continue to fully operate in Canada as well as in the U.S., subject only to any applicable embargo imposed by any of the U.S. railroads.”
CN, meanwhile, said in a separate statement Monday it had imposed embargoes effective that day on all “rail security-sensitive materials” and “time-sensitive” commodities bound from Canada to the U.S. and Mexico — or bound from origins in the U.S. and Mexico into Canada — and has set up a permit system accordingly.
CN’s intermodal shipments and its “Canada-to-Canada” carload shipments of all commodities will continue to move as usual, the company added.
However, CN said Monday, other freight customers “may also start to experience delayed or suspended service over the course of this week, as the railroads prepare for the possibility that current labour negotiations do not result in a resolution and are forced to substantially reduce operations.”
CP, in its memo to customers Tuesday, said it hasn’t yet launched any such embargoes but is “closely monitoring developments to evaluate any potential impact to shipments on CP’s network.”
However, CP added, embargoes set up by “other railroads” may hinder its ability to move equipment on its own North American network — for example, any traffic that’s interchanged to any of the involved or affected railroads, or traffic that relies on haulage handling or running rights agreements or reciprocal switch service on such railroads.
For CP’s intermodal customers, U.S.-destined traffic from the Port of Montreal and Port Saint John may be impacted, the railway said.
Apart from the lines to be acquired via its deal for Kansas City Southern, CP’s own directly-operated U.S. track reaches Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Albany and Searsport, Maine.
CN’s directly-owned U.S. track, meanwhile, reaches U.S. destinations including New Orleans, Mobile, Minneapolis, Omaha, Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Memphis, among others. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
