Employees at Canada’s two biggest railways have authorized a strike that could see thousands of workers walk off the job in three weeks if they are unable to reach new deals on contract demands. About 6,000 employees at Canadian National Railway Co. and 3,300 at Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. voted more than 97 per cent in favour of a strike mandate this week, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference said Wednesday. “After six months of negotiations with both companies, we are no closer to reaching a settlement than when we first began. Both companies are trying to strip our coll ..read more

Unifor has achieved an “important victory” after grocery workers at 11 Loblaw-owned Dominion stores in Newfoundland ratified a new deal Monday, a labour expert said. After setting a precedent with a Metro strike in the Toronto area last year, “it looks like Unifor has successfully extended the pattern to the East Coast,” said Adam King, an assistant professor in the labour studies department at the University of Manitoba. Workers voted 88 per cent in favour of the deal, which Unifor said will boost wages by $4.50 per hour for full-time workers by the end of the five-year ag ..read more

Airline caterer Gate Gourmet says its employees have voted in favour of a tentative deal with management, putting them back on the job as soon as today. About 800 food service workers at Toronto’s Pearson airport went on strike on April 16, leaving thousands of passengers without meals. The employees cook, package and deliver food and drinks to planes for service on board, with Air Canada and WestJet having to limit meal offerings during the two-week job action. Gate Gourmet says it will return to regular operations at Pearson “as soon as possible.” The collective agreement ..read more

Some 5,000 Quebec liquor corporation workers walked off the job on Wednesday for a planned two-day strike amid contract negotiations with their employer. Their union — the Syndicat des employé(e)s de magasins et de bureaux de la SAQ — confirmed at midnight on Facebook it was launching the strike after a lack of progress at the negotiating table. It says the two strike days are the first to be used under the union’s 15-day strike mandate. The union said about 70 per cent of its members are part-time or on call, and it is calling on the Société des alcools du Québec, a Crown corporation, to crea ..read more

A decisive majority of the Volkswagen workers employed at a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee cast their ballots in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union, the German automaker announced on April 19, 2024. Persuading any Southern autoworkers to join a union had long been one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the UAW to organize this workforce. To be sure, the UAW already has members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi. However, the union had previously tried and largely failed ..read more

Ottawa has appointed an Industrial Inquiry Commission into the underlying causes of the labour disputes at west coast ports that took place last summer. “The workers and businesses that depend on our West Coast ports deserve long-term solutions,” said Minister of Labour and Seniors Seamus O’Regan Jr. “They deserve solutions that respect the collective bargaining process. They deserve stability and certainty in our supply chains.” The government said it “believes” in collective bargaining and that the best deals are made at the table, while acknowledging it can be “tough, messy work.” The Commi ..read more

A Quebec-based union says it has filed an application to represent hundreds of Amazon.com Inc. workers at a warehouse in the province. The Confédération des syndicats nationaux says the application it made with the Administrative Labour Tribunal is to represent 200 employees at Amazon’s DXT4 warehouse in Laval. The union, which represents 330,000 workers across a wide array of industries, says the tribunal will now have to ensure the union cards warehouse workers signed represent a majority of staff at the facility. If the tribunal finds the threshold has been met, the union says it ..read more

Unionized workers at an Airbus assembly plant north of Montreal have rejected a contract offer for the third time. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents about 1,300 employees at the Mirabel, Que. facility, said Sunday that nearly 70 per cent of its members voted against the proposed deal. “With this agreement in principle, we believed we had met the expectation of our members, but that was not the case,” Éric Rancourt, the union’s spokesman at the negotiating table, said in a news release. “We will quickly communicate with the employer to discuss t ..read more

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is a “fraud” for portraying himself as a friend of the working class, the head of the country’s largest labour organization said Thursday, urging unions to do everything they can to expose him before the next federal election. Canadian Labour Congress President Bea Bruske delivered her call to arms as union leaders gathered in Ottawa to plot strategy ahead of the vote, which must happen before October 2025. “We must do everything in our power to expose Mr. Pierre Poilievre for the fraud that he is,” Bruske said. “We must be under no illusions.” NDP Leader J ..read more

About 800 airline food service staff at Toronto’s Pearson airport went on strike Tuesday, leaving thousands of passengers without meals. Gate Gourmet employees voted 96 per cent against an offer from the Swiss-owned travel catering company on Monday night, Teamsters Canada said. The workers cook, package and deliver food and beverages to planes for in-flight service. The job action, which kicked off a minute past midnight, affects travellers on Air Canada, WestJet and a majority of flights to and from the country’s busiest airport. “Our members are trying to survive this cost of living crisis ..read more