(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on December 3, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Canadian National Railway was ramping its operations back up Dec. 3 following a five-day strike by locomotive engineers, but it was not clear how long it would take Canada’s largest railroad to get back to full service.
Industry sources had said during the strike that it would take at least several days to get all crews back on regular schedules and get train traffic back to a pre-strike pace.
“CN is acting quickly to resume normal operations as fast as possible with its locomotive engineers now back at work,” company spokesman Mark Hallman said Thursday.
The company and Teamsters Canada Rail Conference agreed late Dec. 2 on a plan to resume contract negotiations, and to immediately end the strike that began early Saturday by 1,700 train engineers.
Canada’s government, saying the strike threatened to derail the fragile economic recovery, rushed to put a bill before Parliament that would force strikers back to work and put union-railroad disputes under binding arbitration. The TCRC was considering whether to fight the measure in court if it became law, a spokesman said Dec. 2, because “it removes our bargaining power.”
However, the union and CN worked out a framework deal to end the strike before the legislation passed. CN said it was lifting contract terms it earlier imposed, of a 1.5 percent wage hike and a longer work-distance rule for engineers.
“CN and the TCRC have agreed to continue negotiations to resolve all issues related to wages, benefits and work rules,” the parties said in a joint statement. “If there is no agreement, the parties’ wages and benefits offers will be subject to final, binding arbitration.”
Some industry sources said the longer the strike lasted, the longer it would take to restore normal service and clear out any shipment backlogs created when railroad managers ran a shortened train schedule. A shipper official said CN had only 225 qualified managers to operate trains while the union workers stayed away.
Although the strike ended early enough to prevent major freight-system disruptions, sources said it would take at least two days and perhaps up to four or five to have all train crews and service schedules back to normal.