Canadian Government Intervenes To Stop Rail Strike

On Friday, the Canadian government intervened to stop the planned Canadian rail strike, just 18 hours after the strike got underway.

Fearing the risk to North American economies, the government forced the unions and railway to enter into binding arbitration, which suggests the details of the dispute may be ironed out in front of a judge at a later date.

The strike got underway on Thursday 22nd August as expected, but after the government's intervention, unions reluctantly instructed their workers to return to work on Monday 26th August. While the immediate threat of a strike appears to have rescinded, union leaders are believed to be looking into filing an appeal in federal court.

The fast return to work does not mean their will be no disruption, as it is likely that rail freight movements throughout Canada will take a few days to get back to normal.

Ocean freight services may be impacted for a little longer, as carriers had already altered schedules to avoid the strike and it may take a while for schedules to get back on track, assuming there is no further action.

However, should a prolonged strike have taken place the disruption would have been significantly worse, since high volumes of ocean freight traffic moves by rail inside Canada and cross border through the US.