CP trains resume rolling

Canadian Pacific operations throughout Canada resumed at roughly 7:00 a.m. Friday morning (Eastern Time), CP spokesman Ed Greenberg told Railway Age.

Teamsters Canada, representing about 5,000 CP employees, launched the strike May 23 after negotiations with management failed to yield an agreement. Union members did continue to oversee regional passenger (commuter) operations in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, which use CP rights-of-way.

Resumption follows action Thursday evening by the Canadian Senate, which passed back-to-work legislation, following similar action earlier in the week by the House of Commons.

Greenberg said normal operations should resume within 48 hours, or sometime during the weekend. “There will be a period to catch up on backlog and that is something we’ll be doing once we’re operating again. We’ll be doing that as quickly as possible,” he said.

The legislation ending the strike instructs the federal government to appoint an arbitrator, who has 90 days to work with both CP and the union to create a compromise contract, which would then be imposed.