Arbitration hearing between Canadian railroads and union ends with no decision on back-to-work order

TORONTO (AP) — A workers union on Friday threatened a strike at one of Canada’s two major freight railroads, only hours after the company’s trains restarted following a potentially devastating stoppage. A government-ordered arbitration hearing wrapped up without a decision, and Canadian National trains were expected to keep moving at least through Monday morning.

CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. locked out their workers on Thursday when negotiations over a new labor contract reached a deadline without an agreement. That resulted in a near total shutdown of freight rail in the country for more than a day, until Canadian National resumed its service on Friday morning. Trains operated by CPKC remain parked and its workers, who had already been on strike since Thursday, stayed on the picket line Friday.

The government forced the companies and the union, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, into arbitration overseen by the Canada Industrial Relations Board — an order the union is challenging. Friday's nine-hour hearing ended with no order from the board.

The union filed a 72-hour strike notice against CN on Friday morning shortly after it announced that it planned to challenge the arbitration order, union spokesperson Marc-André Gauthier said.

If the board orders the union back to work, “the TCRC will lawfully abide by the decision, but will undertake steps to challenge to the fullest extent," the Teamsters said in a statement. “Unfortunately this will not provide immediate relief but the Union is prepared to appeal to federal court if necessary.”

“We do not believe that any of the matters we have been discussing over the last several days are insurmountable and we remain available for discussion in order to resolve this matter without a further work stoppage,” the union said in its letter to CN management.

Canadian National, which has about 6,500 workers involved in the dispute, said the impact of the strike notice will depend on the timing of the CIRB's decision. “It is in the national interest of Canada that the CIRB rule quickly, before even more harm is caused,” the railroad said in a written statement. CPKC has about 3,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers involved.

Perrin Beatty, President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the union's latest actions "will prolong the damage to our economy and jeopardize the wellbeing and livelihoods of Canadians, including union and non-union workers across multiple industries.”

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon had announced the decision to force the parties into binding arbitration on Thursday afternoon, more than 16 hours after the lockout shut down the railroads, saying the economic risk was too great to allow them to continue. The government had declined to order arbitration two weeks ago. Mackinnon said he had hoped that negotiations between the companies and the union on a new contract would succeed. A spokesman for MacKinnon declined to comment Friday on the strike notice.

“This is not about disobeying the minister’s order. It’s about exercising our right,” Teamsters Canada President Francois Laporte said Friday in announcing the strike. “We will exercise our right within the legal framework."

Canadian National trains had begun rolling at 7 a.m. across Canada, said CN spokesperson Jonathan Abecassis. The development initially appeared to at least partially end a work stoppage that threatened to wreak havoc on the economies of Canada and the United States. Both countries, across all industries, rely on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products.

“While CN is focused on its recovery plan and powering the economy, Teamsters are focused on getting back to the picket line and holding the North American economy hostage to their demands,” Abecassis said following the union’s strike notice.

Getting even one of the railroads running again is a relief for businesses. In most past rail labor disputes, only one of the Canadian railroads stopped and the economy was able to weather that disruption.

The negotiations that began last year are hung up on issues around the way workers are scheduled and contract rules designed to prevent fatigue. The railroads had proposed shifting away from the current system that pays workers based on the number of miles they travel, to a system based on the hours they work. The railroads said the switch would make it easier to provide predictable schedules. But the union resisted because it feared the proposed changes would erode hard-fought protections against fatigue and jeopardize safety.

Similar quality-of-life concerns about demanding schedules and the lack of paid sick time drove U.S. railroads to the brink of a strike two years ago before Congress and President Joe Biden intervened and forced workers to accept a deal.

In Canada, another issue at CN is the railroad's intention to expand a system that allows it to temporarily relocate workers to other parts of its network when it's short on employees in a certain region.

Regarding wages, the railroads said they both offered raises in line with other recent deals in the industry for what are already well-paying jobs. Canadian National has said its engineers make about $150,000 and conductors earn roughly $121,000 for working 160 days a year though some of their time off is spent stuck at hotels on the road between train trips while getting required rest. CPKC says its pay is comparable.

Nearly all of Canada’s freight handled by rail — worth more than $1 billion Canadian (US$730 million) a day and adding up to more than 375 million tons of freight last year — stopped Thursday along with rail shipments crossing the U.S. border. A number of smaller short-line freight railroads that handle local deliveries continued operating but were unable to hand off shipments to either of the major railroads while they were idle.

About 30,000 commuters in Canada were also affected because their trains use CPKC’s lines. CPKC and CN’s trains continued operating in the U.S. and Mexico during the lockout.

Billions of dollars of goods move between Canada and the U.S. via rail each month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“There are a lot of goods and services shipped across borders," Sean O’Brien, President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said at a rally in Calgary, Alberta, on Friday. "If this company chooses to continue its bad behavior then it is going to have an impact. ... They’ve got a lot of decisions they need to make. And they need to make the most important decision: Reward these workers with what they’ve earned and also don’t try to diminish safety just so they need to feed their bottom lines.”

The story has been edited to correct that the government had declined to order arbitration two weeks ago, not a week ago.

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

Francois Laporte, National President, Teamsters Canada, speaks to media as picketing rail workers gather at the CPKC headquarters in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.(Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press via AP)

Francois Laporte, National President, Teamsters Canada, speaks to media as picketing rail workers gather at the CPKC headquarters in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.(Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press via AP)

Teamsters Canada Rail Conference members picket outside the CPKC headquarters in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.(Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press via AP)

Sean O'Brien, General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, speaks to media as picketing rail workers gather at the CPKC headquarters in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.(Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press via AP)

Train cars are seen on the tracks in an aerial view at Canadian National Rail's Thornton Yard as the Port Mann Bridge spans the Fraser River and trucks transport cargo containers on the highway in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

Teamsters Canada Rail Conference picket sign lean up againts a CPKC logo outside the company's headquarters in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.(Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press via AP)

Locked out Canadian National Rail workers stand at a picket line as locomotives are moved by management at CN Rail's Thornton Yard in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

Picketer carry Teamsters Rail placards at a Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail yard in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

A picketer carries a Teamsters Rail placard at a Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail yard in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Train cars are seen on the tracks in an aerial view at Canadian National Rail's Thornton Yard as the Port Mann Bridge spans the Fraser River and trucks transport cargo containers on the highway in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

BOSTON (AP) — A study that explores the feasibility of using pigeons to guide missiles and one that looks at the swimming abilities of dead fish were among the winners Thursday of this year’s Ig Nobels, the prize for comical scientific achievement.

Held less than a month before the actual Nobel Prizes are announced, the 34th annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was organized by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine’s website to make people laugh and think. Winners received a transparent box containing historic items related to Murphy’s Law — the theme of the night — and a nearly worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill. Actual Nobel laureates handed the winners their prizes.

“While some politicians were trying to make sensible things sound crazy, scientists discovered some crazy-sounding things that make a lot of sense,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, said in an e-mail interview.

The ceremony started with Kees Moliker, winner of 2003 Ig Noble for biology, giving out safety instructions. His prize was for a study that documented the existence of homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks.

“This is the duck,” he said, holding up a duck. “This is the dead one.”

After that, someone came on stage wearing a yellow target on their chest and a plastic face mask. Soon, they were inundated with people in the audience throwing paper airplanes at them.

Then, the awards began — several dry presentations which were interrupted by a girl coming on stage and repeatedly yelling “Please stop. I'm bored.” The awards ceremony was also was broken up by an international song competition inspired by Murphy's Law, including one about coleslaw and another about the legal system.

The winners were honored in 10 categories, including for peace and anatomy. Among them were scientists who showed a vine from Chile imitates the shapes of artificial plants nearby and another study that examined whether the hair on people's heads in the Northern Hemisphere swirled in the same direction as someone's hair in the Southern Hemisphere.

Other winners include a group of scientists who showed that fake medicine that causes side effects can be more effective than fake medicine that doesn't cause side effects and one showing that some mammals are cable of breathing through their anus — winners who came on stage wearing a fish-inspired hats.

Julie Skinner Vargas accepted the peace prize on behalf of her late father B.F. Skinner, who wrote the pigeon-missile study. Skinner Vargas is also the head of the B.F. Skinner Foundation.

“I want to thank you for finally acknowledging his most important contribution,” she said. “Thank you for putting the record straight.”

James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, accepted the physics prize for his study demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

“I discovered that a live fish moved more than a dead fish but not by much,” Liao said, holding up a fake fish. “A dead trout towed behind a stick also flaps its tail to the beat of the current like a live fish surfing on swirling eddies, recapturing the energy in its environment. A dead fish does live fish things.”

Professor James Liao displays a stuffed fish while accepting a prize for physics for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

A team of researchers perform a demonstration during a performance showing that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus while accepting the 2024 Ig Nobel prize in physiology at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

People in the audience throw paper airplanes toward the stage during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

FILE - Students walk past the "Great Dome" atop Building 10 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass, April 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)