For the first time in Canada’s history, both its major rail companies have stopped operating after employers shut out workers.

The teamsters have been fighting for safety provisions regarding fatigue and for CN workers to be able to stay with their families. According to the union’s website, CPKC wants to gut fatigue provisions which would mean crews have to stay awake longer, increasing the risk of derailments and other accidents.

CN is also targeting fatigue provisions. As well, it wants to implement a forced relocation scheme, which would see workers ordered to move across the country for months at a time to fill labour shortages.

The Transportation Safety Board has put fatigue on its watch list since 2016. Crews often work long and irregular schedules which can make it difficult to get restorative sleep, according to the safety board’s website. The board wrote it is concerned about how fatigue can affect the performance of crews and therefore the safety of operations.

  • aaaaaceEnglish
    1·
    24 days ago

    The financial titans of the day invested in and built them.

    Govt helped by donating land for right of way.

    Sometimes they didn’t get built and lost money. Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central tried to compete with the Pennsylvania at one time, but the route became the PA Turnpike after he abandoned the effort.

    They all ran their own passenger service until Amtrak was formed to bail them out.

    The NYCentral and Pennsylvania merged and then went bankrupt, there’s a book about the fall of the Penn Central.

    There have been many failed railroad companies in the US.