Canada - The looming rail strike by Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), train and engine members is inching closer after Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (CP) issued a 72 hour notice of its plan to lock out employees at midnight on 20 Mar 2022 if a negotiated settlement or binding arbitration isn't reached between the union leadership and the company.
 
On the CP website, Keith Creel, CP president and CEO, says the company has been negotiating in good faith since September yet both sides remain far apart.
 
Daily meetings this week between CP and TCRC with federal mediators involved, failed to ink a new negotiated collective agreement that would avert a labour disruption.
 
Creel says, "Earlier this week CP tabled an offer that addressed a total of 26 outstanding issues between the parties, including an offer to resolve the TCRC's key issues of wages, benefits, and pensions through final and binding arbitration."
 
"The TCRC leadership rejected CP's offer, contrary to public statements by TCRC spokesman Dave Fulton that wages, benefits, and pensions were the key issues, the union continues to table additional work rule demands," said Creel in the statement.
 
"In rejecting our offer, the TCRC's proposal included an even more onerous pension demand. The TCRC's latest position would, if accepted, be even more destabilizing to the pension plan for all of CP's unionized employees, not just the 10 percent who are TCRC members."
 
Meanwhile, CP has begun its work stoppage contingency plan and Creel says they will work closely with customers to achieve a "smooth, efficient, and safe wind-down of Canadian operations."
 
"For the sake of our employees, our customers, the supply chain we serve, and the Canadian economy that is trying to recover from multiple disruptions, we simply cannot prolong for weeks or months the uncertainty associated with a potential labor disruption. The world has never needed Canada's resources and an efficient transportation system to deliver them more than it does today. Delaying resolution would only make things worse," he said.
 
Concerns of increasing supply shortages, particularly with oil, grain, and potash, has some people uneasy, but Tim Heney, CEO of the Thunder Bay Port Authority, says he's not really worried at this point.
 
"There is a bit of a lower demand for grain because there isn't much to sell. It was a very poor year last year, it was down the worst in 14 years. So I'm not sure if this can cause an issue. Usually rail strikes aren't that long, traditionally, they end in a couple of days or whatever, that's been the history of the strikes. It will affect the port, but it's not in a booming year is what I'm saying," he said.
 
However, the strike could definitely affect potash imports that need to be transported as seeding for growing season approaches.
 
Heney says there is a higher demand for potash because of the world situation right now.
 
"Ships match up with the unit train and they load it right off the train into the ship. So if the trains are not here, you have a bit of an issue there. It will affect that negatively if the strike transpires, but generally the strikes are not that long so we will have to wait and see," he said.
 
Regardless of a rail strike, ships will begin moving through the lakes when the Soo Locks open on 25 Mar 2022.
 
The Thunder Bay port will see the Canada Coast Guard Samuel Risley on 22 Mar 2022 with a couple of American cutters also arriving to help break up the ice.
 
Several attempts by The Chronicle-Journal to reach representatives from Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) went unanswered.
 
Sandi Krasowski.