A strike at Canada’s largest railroad, Canadian National Railway Co., is threatening to slow agricultural exports with more than 30 vessels waiting at Canada’s West Coast today to load grain shipments to be shipped to overseas buyers.
As the strike by some 3,200 unionized employees entered its seventh day on Monday, labour union Teamsters Canada said on it had made no progress in reaching an agreement.
We are “no closer to reaching an agreement than when the strike began,” union spokesman Chris Monette told Reuters by phone.
Striking conductors and yard workers are demanding improved working conditions, including worker rest breaks in what is Canada’s biggest rail strike in a decade.
Quorum Corporation President Mark Hemmes, which monitors the movement of prairie grain for the Canadian government, told Reuters there were 21 ships parked in the Port of Vancouver as of Friday and nine anchored at the Port of Prince Rupert, in northern British Columbia.
Those figures, he added, would likely to rise by to a combined 35 vessels later today.
(Reuters)
