Montreal (AFP) – Canadian National Railway and the Teamsters union representing conductors and rail yard workers reached a tentative deal Tuesday to end a strike that had effectively shut down the largest rail network in Canada.
The union said workers would be back on the job and trains would start rolling again at 6 am local times Wednesday morning across the nation.
“I am pleased to announce that we’ve reached a tentative agreement with CN,” Teamsters Canada president Francois Laporte said in a statement.
The agreement must still be ratified in the coming months. Details of it won’t be released until the union’s members have had a chance to review them, Laporte said.
More than 3,200 CN workers walked off the job one week ago, creating critical shipping backlogs of everything from grain to propane, and prompting calls for the federal government to intervene.
Transportation Minister Marc Garneau had said during the negotiations that the strike was having “a considerable economic impact on Canadians.”
“This is not only an inconvenience,” he said, “but it’s also very stressful in many, many cases, because CN is a major supplier of products across the entire country.”
Economists had also warned that a prolonged strike would be a significant drag on an already softening economy.
But Garneau resisted calls to force workers back to work, urging the two sides to hammer out a settlement.
The CN workers had been without a new contract since the last one expired in July, and months of mediation had failed to resolve differences.
Workers had expressed concerns over long hours and fatigue leading to dangerous working conditions. They walked off the job after CN announced job cuts.
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