Canadian Pacific Rail reaches agreement with Teamsters to end strike

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) says it has reached a tentative agreement with Canadian Pacific Railway to end a strike hours after it began.

Trains will be back on CP rail lines by early Thursday morning.

“We would like to thank our members for their incredible support throughout this process,” said Doug Finnson, president of the TCRC in a news release. “We believe this is a fair contract that our members can feel good about ratifying. I am personally very satisfied with what we have negotiated.”

Details about the agreement are being kept under wraps as the union will now vote on it over the coming months. The collective agreement affects over 3000 conductors and locomotive engineers.

In its news release, the union went on to thank the mediators and the Trudeau government for standing up for workers’ right to negotiate, saying previous governments were “too eager to threaten back to work legislation”.

The parties also reached a deal for the Kootenay Valley Railway. Full operations at both railways are set to resume Thursday morning across Canada.

-with files from Canadian Press