Via Rail and Unifor Council 4000 and Local 100 officials have announced that an interim agreement has been reached just before a deadline that would have seen some 2,400 workers leave work.
A Via Rail statement says the agreement, which has yet to be ratified by the union, will be retroactive to January 1, 2022 and valid until December 31, 2024.
Details of the new contract have not been released, but a statement from Unifor says they will do so once it has been ratified by the partners.
With the strike averted, Via Rail noted that the interim agreements give traveling Canadians a break from the uncertainty of a possible closure.
Unifor chief negotiator Scott Doherty thanked union members and the traveling public “for their patience and support, as we continued to negotiate beyond the strike deadline to reach this agreement.”
As the talks progressed, the union offered to delay several deadlines that would have initiated labor action and derailed the company’s operations side by side.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 12, 2022.