Canadian Pacific Railway Engineers Go on Strike as Negotiations Break Down.

OTTAWA — About 3,000 locomotive engineers and conductors at the Canadian Pacific Railway walked off the job early Sunday morning in a dispute over wages and benefits.

Although the company said it would try to maintain some service by using managers, the strike is likely to disrupt key industries throughout North America, including automakers, oil companies, papermakers, lumber suppliers and agriculture and mining companies.

In a news release issued immediately before the strike, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference suggested that disagreements on rest time and other scheduling issues had led to the breakdown in negotiations.

“We require sufficient fatigue countermeasures to protect our members safety and health,” the statement said.

Canadian Pacific said it had offered improvements in both pay and benefits. It disputed the union’s suggestion that its members need more rest.

The union’s leadership, the company said in a statement, “claims that lack of time off is at the heart of its reluctance to negotiate, yet 72 percent of all engineers and conductors do not take the time off they are entitled to.”

Unifor, the union for about 1,800 maintenance and safety workers, said early Sunday morning that it had reached an agreement with the company minutes before its members were set to strike.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/business/international/canadian-pacific-railway-strike-may-affect-north-american-industries.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0