Ottawa Ontario - Roughly 3,300 striking engineers and conductors at Canadian Pacific Railway are headed back to work, but experts say serial government intervention is making future strikes more likely.
 
The workers abruptly ended a two-day strike Monday, after CP and the Teamsters union agreed to arbitration, just as the federal government was poised to order them back on the job.
 
CP service across the country, including train service for roughly 19,000 commuters in the Montreal area, is expected to return to normal Tuesday.
 
Federal Labour Minister Kellie Leitch hailed the end of the strike, which began Saturday, as "great news" for the Canadian economy.
 
"The strike is over," Ms. Leitch told reporters in Ottawa.
 
"This will bring an end to the work stoppage that could have seriously harmed the Canadian economy."
 
But labour relations experts warned that intervention by Ottawa is doing more harm than good because research shows intervention makes future strikes much more likely.
 
"It chills bargaining," explained Robert Paul Hebdon, an organizational behaviour professor at McGill University's Desautels business school.
 
"It becomes institutionalized."
 
Ottawa ordered striking CP workers back to work in 2012 after nine days off the jobs.
 
Three years later they were back on strike, with many of the same issues still unresolved, including operator fatigue and minimum rest periods for workers between shifts, according to the union.
 
Ottawa has abandoned the long-standing federal practice of largely staying on the sidelines in labour disputes by repeatedly threatening back-to-work legislation, often preemptively, he said.
 
"This government has rewritten 60 years of labour policy," Prof. Hebdon said.
 
"It's the only government I've ever seen that wants to end strikes almost before they've begun. They don't seem to like unions conducting strikes of any kind."
 
Since 2010, Ottawa has directly intervened in labour disputes at Air Canada, Canada Post, Canadian National, and CP, all federally regulated industries.
 
With the threat of back-to-work legislation hanging over negotiations, management has little incentive to make concessions at the bargaining table, Prof. Hebdon said.
 
"The threat of back-to-work legislation is always the worst option," NDP labour critic Alexandre Boulerice told reporters in Ottawa.
 
But Ms. Leitch said the government's top priority was getting commuters to work in Montreal, and keeping freight shipments and exports moving.
 
She said a protracted strike would have cost the economy $205-million a week in lost output, although she did not explain how the estimate was calculated.
 
"We're doing this for the good of our country," Ms. Leitch said before the two sides agreed to resume bargaining.
 
"Our economy must be protected. Our products must reach markets. Canadian jobs must be preserved."
 
Prof. Hebdon, however, suggested there is little evidence of a national emergency in any of these cases where Ottawa has gotten involved.
 
Various industry groups warned that the strike was threatening to disrupt movement of various commodities and manufactured goods, including cars, crude oil, grain, minerals, and forest products.
 
"This decision ensures both sides will get back to the table, and gets us back to moving Canada's economy forward," CP chief executive Hunter Harrison said in a statement.

Barrie McKenna.

Why is There a Strike at Canadian Pacific?

1. This is not about money, it's about fatigue, safety, quality of life, with dignity and respect.
 
2. CP's demands represent a significant concession to work rest provisions and would dramatically increase the fatigue of the membership.
 
3. CP's demands include a twelve hour work day and increase or eliminate maximum monthly mileages.
 
4. Fatigue, hundreds of 10 hours rest violations with employees working after giving proper notice of rest to the Company.
 
5. The Railway Association of Canada is pursuing legislative change that would allow them access to inward facing Locomotive Video and Voice Recorders (LVVR) to monitor your rules activities at all times while you are working.
 
6. CP is forcing mandatory overtime when members are exempt from the overtime limitation of the Canada Labour Code (48 hours/week).
 
7. CP's demands include eliminating the unfit clause (designed to assure employees are going with clear minds necessary to perform their duty).
 
8. CP's demands include the elimination of the twenty four hour rest clause (creates an environment where employees will be forced to work fatigued).
 
9. CP's demands include eliminating all earned days off (EDOs) (EDO Earned based on 99 percent availability).
 
10. CP's demands include eliminating rest after annual vacation rest after miles, and rest after miles (Agreed upon items from the Kaplan arbitration).
 
11. CP's demands include the elimination all road/yard distinctions.
 
12. CP's demands represent a dramatic increase in the amount of time on duty during each shift and to work more often.
 
13. CP has established a culture of fear and toxic work environment with all employees. CIRB decision 679 "By its actions, the employer has made it virtually impossible for the labour-relations system to work as it should."
 
14. CP has overloaded the grievance procedure by continually violating the collective agreement, dismissing employees at an unprecedented rate, while attacking respected arbitrators.
 
15. CP refuses to agree to the simplest of issues.
 
16. In an industry plagued with fatigue, the Company's demands will not only increase the workload on our membership and ultimately their fatigue but it will have a detrimental effect on their families, and clearly affect public safety.