Canada’s labour tribunal calls rail shutdown end order ‘unprecedented’

Canada’s labour tribunal says the national government’s directive to extremity the countrywide rail shutdown successful August marked an “unprecedented” move.

In a caller papers explaining its decision, the Canada Industrial Relations Board said Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon’s acquisition that the quasi-judicial assemblage halt enactment stoppages and commencement binding arbitration amounted to an order.

The tribunal says MacKinnon efficaciously directed the committee to extremity the strikes and lockouts astatine Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd.

Trending Now

However, it besides says the labour curate was simply utilizing his “discretionary powers” nether the Canada Labour Code, and that the committee had nary leeway to garbage the directive successful this case.

Union members and labour advocates person criticized the move, saying it undermined workers’ negotiating leverage and bargaining rights.

MacKinnon has said helium supports corporate bargaining but that the directive was needed to bounds the fallout of a enactment stoppage that halted freight and commuter postulation crossed the country.