A Teamsters’ strike that idled Canadian Pacific Railway’s freight network in Canada is hindering shipments at the country’s two biggest ports as the labor action continued.
A logjam of slowed grain and coal shipments at Port Metro Vancouver, the largest, joins a pile-up of container shipments in Montreal, as idled freight lines constrict the supply chains of railroad customers. A potential weekly economic impact of C$540 million in a prolonged strike prompted the government to consider a bill halting it when Parliament returns next week.
“Movement of major export commodities out of Canada’s largest port will become severely hampered in coming days due to the work stoppage,” Peter Xotta, the Vancouver port’s vice president of planning and operations, said in a statement Thursday. “Deprived of CP’s rail services, the Port’s major sulfur, coal, potash and grain terminals are losing volume.”
The port, which handles about C$200 million ($194 million) of freight each day, estimates that about half is usually transported by Canadian Pacific. Much of the cargo that would normally be moved by the Calgary-based rail carrier is “finding other ways” including on rival Canadian National Railway Co.’s lines, said Marko Dekovic, a Port Metro Vancouver spokesman.
“Our terminal operators are managing pretty good in cooperation with shippers to not have much idling,” Dekovic said. Mines and grain companies whose businesses are served solely by Canadian Pacific’s network are affected the most, he said.
Canadian Pacific’s operations in the northern United States are still running. The carrier serves 13 states as well as six Canadian provinces with its 14,800 miles of track, according to its website.
Vancouver port officials called for a quick end to the strike, and Labor Minister Lisa Raitt has said she would introduce back-to-work legislation, if needed, to protect the economy.
Members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents more than 4,000 of the Calgary-based railroad’s workers, walked off their jobs when contract talks stalled over pension-plan cuts and work-hours rules.
Negotiations, which began in October, continued Friday,k said Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for Canadian Pacific.
“We feel this is a completely unnecessary strike,” he said. “CP has successfully renewed over 100 collective agreements in the past 17 years in Canada and the U.S. This is the third Teamsters strike at Canadian Pacific since 2003, while none of the other unions representing our employees have struck.”
Doug Finnson, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference vice president, didn’t answer his cell phone or return a message left with the Teamsters office.
The strike complicates Canadian Pacific’s operations as it seeks to reduce expenses and searches for a new chief executive officer after investor William Ackman’s months-long proxy fight to replace former CEO Fred Green.
The union has resisted what it described as a 40 percent cut in post-retirement benefits, while Canadian Pacific said the pensions helped push its expense margins higher than those of its peers. The disparity was criticized by Ackman during the proxy campaign.
And we all wonder why Cianbro, and Irving if you look into this deep enough, want a 2000 FT WIDE CORRIDOR for the E-W Highway project ? The Canadian trucking company’s aren’t the only one’s looking for way to benefit by ‘sidesaddling’ the Act. I haven’t been able to read it all but there is, no doubt, a provision for Cianbro to survey the route and plan for more than 1 type of transportation system. We already know that the highway is planned to be beyond any size, weight or speed restriction’s since the Act gives it all away to Cianbro. Same for the proposed oil pipeline. But now we see that this is also being planned to provide a rail corridor. Given that Irving has recently won a contract for a number of Canadian Navy ships to be built in Halifax’s shipyard, and needs a way to ship huge amount’s of prefabricated Canadian steel ship component’s to those yard’s, whole ship components like bow and hull structure’s that are far beyond the physical boundary’s of the U.S. highway system’s to handle, is it a wonder why Cianbro, and Irving, wants this Highway so badly?
Since Cianbro is gonna be the one to set the toll rate, and Maine isin’t gonna have a single thing to say about it since Maine gave that authority away in the Act, the only one to benefit here is Cianbro, and Irving. Irving is gonna be making money both on the steel moving end but also the fuel stop’s end since you can bet right now that Irving is already, if they don’t have it done prior, gotten or are getting surveyed locations for their fuel stop’s just inside the Canadian border on each end done and finalized. And you can already see that Cianbro is gonna to be the one’s building Irving’s fuel station’s. No, this rail strike is gonna be used more frequently to justify, or try to justify, the Highway being built using the ‘if we can’t rail ship it then we can at least truck ship it’ arguement. The bigger question is are smart enough to see what’s coming that these 2 Company’s are trying to do to us and our collective future’s ?
Seriously doubt they are planning for a rail corridor. Hello! There’s an existing rail corridor that’s parallel to it! Now, how dumb would that be? You’re right. No dumber than building a 4-lane highway in 2012, at least 30 years after it was cool.
Claiming that the U.S. operations are not affected by the strike is a bold face lie! My husband works for CP rail out of MN in the USA and not a single train has moved in the last three days; so yes the strike is affecting us too. Perhaps it didn’t occur to the strikers on the Canadian half of the tracks that their refusal to work is causing my husband to lose his paycheck as well!!!
Some trains are moving through Minnesota, just not as many as before the strike. I too am feeling it, but am appreciative that they are fighting this for us. The change in work rules, cutting the pensions by 40%, etc., are drastic steps at a time when the company is making record profits.
Be happy that they are fighting it before we end up having to fight it!