VIA Rail Strike Averted

Photo courtesy of VIA Rail Facebook page

For a short, but anxiety-ridden weekend, it looked like the summer plans of thousands were about to get derailed. Last Friday, VIA Rail Canada announced that it had received a strike notice from its employee union UNIFOR, which represents the nearly 1,800 personnel who work in the company’s stations, telephone sales offices, maintenance centres and administrative offices.

Although, according to VIA Rail, the 72-hour notice is “part of the normal process of negotiations for the renewal of collective agreements,” the rail carrier warned that there could be service interruptions as early as this morning.

Late last night, however VIA rail announced that it has now reached a tentative agreement with UNIFOR and the threat of a strike is now over. All VIA Rail trains and services will operate as normal, without interruption.

"We are pleased to have reached a tentative agreement." said Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, President and CEO of VIA Rail. "The positive outcome of these negotiations accurately reflects the focus of all employees of the corporation to provide superior service to our passengers. We thank the local UNIFOR leadership team and its national president Jerry Dias as well as our respective negotiating teams for their dedication and commitment throughout the process. We appreciate the professionalism and support that Labour Canada's mediation team demonstrated under the experienced leadership of Guy Breton, Director General, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services. This agreement allows the corporation to move ahead positively with its many different projects and initiatives aimed at making VIA Rail service the greener, more human and smarter way to move people in Canada."

According to a report by the CBC, 96 per cent of the union’s membership had voted in favour of a strike.

For more information, visit www.VIARail.ca.

Follow @MonicaPoling