A prolonged strike against Canada’s second largest railway may have serious consequences for nation’s mining sector.
RENO (MINEWEB) – A Teamsters strike, which shut down Canadian Pacific Railway freight lines early Wednesday with no end in sight, is leaving mining and other resource companies in Canada faced with disruptions.
The strike involves 4,800 locomotive engineers, conductors, rail traffic controls and yard workers. Mining, agriculture, energy companies, and forestry depend heavily on rail shipments. A CP spokesman said the Teamsters strike idled another 2,000 unionized CP employees, who are being laid off.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference union and CP Railway were still at the bargaining table as the strike continued late Thursday night. Contract talks between the union and the company started in October.
A major bone of contention between the two parties is the annual pension paid to employees. CP has 16,200 employees and 18,000 retirees.
In a news release Wednesday, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference said, “Fatigue management, work rules and pension plans are the core of the negotiations. Canadian Pacific is drastically and unfairly trying to cut its workers’ pensions while generously improving the retirement benefits of its managers.”
However, the Mining Association of Canada urged the federal government of Canada to take immediate action to resolve the dispute. “A strike by CP workers will have a serious effect on the industry,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC CEO. “The shipment of fuel and other supplies to mine sites will be compromised as is the transport of mineral products.”
The association said the rail strike “will cause a shortfall of essential fuel and supply shipments to mines across Canada. It will also prevent mines from delivering their products to their end-point destinations, thus seriously and adversely affecting their ability to operate at any functional capacity.”
MAC’s latest Facts & Figures report said the Canadian mining industry accounts for more than half of the freight annual revenues of the nation’s rail system.
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