OTTAWA — About 3,000 locomotive engineers and conductors at the Canadian Pacific Railway walked off the job Sunday morning in a dispute over wages and benefits.þþAlthough the company said it would try to maintain some service by using managers, the strike is likely to disrupt major industries throughout North America, including automakers, oil companies, paper businesses, lumber suppliers and agriculture and mining companies.þþIn a news release issued immediately before the strike, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference suggested that disagreements on rest time and other scheduling issues had led to the breakdown in negotiations.þþ“We require sufficient fatigue countermeasures to protect our members’ safety and health,” the statement said.þþThe company said it had offered workers improved pay and benefits. It disputed the union’s stance that members needed more rest.þþThe union’s leadership, the company said in a statement, “claims that lack of time off is at the heart of its reluctance to negotiate, yet 72 percent of all engineers and conductors do not take the time off they are entitled to.”þþUnifor, the union for about 1,800 maintenance and safety workers, said Sunday morning that it had reached an agreement with the company minutes before its members were scheduled to strike.þþA prolonged shutdown would be felt in the United States as well as Canada. Producers in Canada’s oil sands have been increasingly using Canadian Pacific, in addition to its rival, Canadian National Railway, for shipments to American refineries. The tightly integrated auto industry is also a major customer.þþAll three Toyota vehicle assembly plants in Ontario use only Canadian Pacific for rail shipments. Greig Mordue, the general manager of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, said that the company had acquired additional areas to stockpile completed cars, would add truck shipments and would take some production to other railways by truck.þþ“It’s a challenge,” Mr. Mordue said. “We have storage spaces essentially for about five days outside of our normal routine.”þþBut those options are not economically viable or even practical for many of Canadian Pacific’s customers.þþDavid Lindsay, the president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, said about three transport trucks would be needed to replace one rail car. A typical paper mill, he added, would need about 40 trucks a day to move its production.þþ“Getting that many trucks and drivers to replace rail cars is a physical challenge,” Mr. Lindsay said, particularly in the remote regions were most paper mills operate.þþAlthough lumber producers can wait out the strike simply by storing wood outdoors, that is impossible for pulp and paper makers. In view of the lack of large warehouses at paper mills, Mr. Lindsay said, most of them would have to suspend production and lay off employees if the strike continued.þþService has also been canceled on three commuter rail lines in Montreal that use Canadian Pacific tracks and engineers.þþRetailers in the United States may also encounter product shortages. Many containers ultimately bound for the United States are unloaded at ports in British Columbia, then delivered by rail to Chicago and other destinations in the United States by Canadian Pacific.þþLabor relations at Canadian Pacific have been shaky in recent years. In 2012, the activist investor William A. Ackman won control of Canadian Pacific through a proxy fight. He then installed E. Hunter Harrison as chief executive, with a mandate to cut costs and improve performance, steps he had previously taken as the top executive at Canadian National. Many of Mr. Harrison’s measures have not gone over well with unions.þþThe Canadian government, which has clashed with Canadian Pacific over delays in grain shipments apparently caused by the growth in its oil shipping business, introduced legislation that ended a 2012 strike after nine days. It is expected that the government may introduce a bill to end this strike as soon as Parliament convenes on Monday.þþOn Friday, Kellie Leitch, the federal labor minister, joined in the labor talks, which were held in Montreal.þ
Source: NY Times
