Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian National Railway (CN) plans to lock out about 4,800 unionized employees across Canada starting Monday night (Feb. 23) unless their union agrees to arbitration for a new contract. Montreal-based CN’s move follows Thursday’s announcement by Unifor — the union representing CN’s mechanical, intermodal and clerical workers — that it will hold a strike vote […] Read more
CN set to lock out 4,800 mechanical, clerical staff Monday
Repair, inspection staff at CN prep for strike vote
Reading Time: 2 minutes Locomotive and rail car maintenance, repair and inspection staff at Canadian National Railway (CN) plan to take a strike vote early next week, their union said Thursday. Unifor, the largest union at CN with over 4,800 members, said Thursday it will hold the vote over a period of up to three weeks, and would set […] Read more
CP’s engineers, conductors on strike
Reading Time: 3 minutes Engineers, conductors, trainmen and yardmen for Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) are on strike after 11th-hour talks ended Saturday night without a new agreement. “Picket lines are now being set up across Canada and the rail shutdown is happening,” Doug Finnson, president of the workers’ union, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), said in a release […] Read more
CN reaches tentative labour deal with engineers
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian National Railway’s (CN) 1,800-odd locomotive engineers will remain on the job until April at least, after tentatively agreeing to a new three-year labour deal with the company. The agreement, reached Saturday, now goes to a ratification vote for the unionized engineers, represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC). Vote results are expected to […] Read more
Another union serves CP with strike notice
Reading Time: < 1 minute Barring last-minute deals or back-to-work legislation, staff handling locomotive and rail car inspection, maintenance and repair at Canadian Pacific Railway may join the company’s engineers and conductors on strike Sunday. Unifor, which represents about 1,800 CP employees, announced Thursday it served CP late Wednesday night with strike notice for 12:01 a.m. Sunday (Feb. 15), following […] Read more
CP conductors, engineers serve strike notice
Reading Time: 2 minutes Unionized engineers and conductors on Canadian Pacific Railway’s (CP) trains have served formal notice they’ll strike Sunday, barring a negotiated deal with the company. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents CP’s locomotive engineers, conductors, trainmen and yardmen, said Tuesday it’s notified CP that the affected workers will strike effective 12:01 a.m. Sunday “in […] Read more
Strike vote passes for CP engineers, conductors
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian Pacific Railway’s unionized conductors and engineers have voted to give themselves a trump card in talks with the company for a new contract. Eligible employees voted 93 per cent in favour of strike action “if necessary” to reach a negotiated settlement with the company, according to their union, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC). […] Read more
Prairie shippers’ group expands grain car tracking
Reading Time: 3 minutes A clutch of Prairie grain industry stakeholders says its pool of weekly data on rail car spotting is getting deeper and still shows significant shortfalls in car delivery from Canada’s big two railways. The Ag Transport Coalition on Tuesday released a performance measurement update, which it says now includes aggregate data from shippers representing about 85 […] Read more
Grain handle up as CN books record freight in 2014
Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian National Railway (CN) reported increased revenue from a higher grain and fertilizer handle as part of its “record full-year freight volumes” for fiscal 2014. The railway on Tuesday released fourth-quarter and 12-month results, booking substantially higher revenues and profit in 2014 over 2013. Montreal-based CN reported $844 million in net income on $3.207 billion […] Read more
Grain shippers’ data show ongoing rail supply/demand gap
Reading Time: 4 minutes Numbers newly crunched by a clutch of Canadian grain shippers paint a picture of a gap that’s wide, and getting wider, between the numbers of rail cars they say they need and what they say they’re getting. The Ag Transport Coalition — which so far includes eight Canadian grain-handling and crop commodity groups, working with […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
