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That was quick: Canadian Pacific, Teamsters settle strike

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Less than 24 hours after the Teamsters struck Canadian Pacific, the walkout is over.

CP said Wednesday afternoon that it had a tentative four-year agreement with the conductors and locomotive engineers on the main CP system. CP also said it had signed a five-year agreement with conductors and locomotive engineers on the smaller KVR railway.

The deal must be ratified by the approxiately 3,000 members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference.

“This is a positive result for our TCRC employees and their families, the 12,000-strong CP family, our customers and the entire Canadian economy,” Keith Creel, CP President and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “It is especially meaningful to achieve a four-year tentative agreement with our valued locomotive engineers and conductors, providing long-term stability for all parties involved. This is a significant step toward a renewed positive relationship growing forward together serving our customers and the Canadian economy.”

The company said no further details would be released “at this time.”

Doug Finnison, the president of the TCRC, said the agreement is “a solid step in re-establishing a positive business relationship and moving forward.” “We have had the discussion that needed to take place,” Finnison was quoted as saying in the statement.

CP reached a three-year agreement with members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers right about the same time as the 10 p.m. Eastern time deadline for the strike authorization.

John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.