Strike averted as VIA Rail reaches tentative agreement with union

VIA Rail and Unifor Council 4000 and Local 100 officials have announced that tentative agreements have been met following a deadline on Monday that would have seen around 2,400 VIA Rail employees walk off the job.

In a statement, VIA Rail says the agreements are subject to ratification vote by the company’s Unifor members and will be retroactive to January 1, and in effect through December 31, 2024.

Unifor says the details of the deal will be released once it has been ratified.

“VIA Rail is pleased to have negotiated these agreements and recognizes the hard work of both parties during this process,” said Martin R Landry, President and Chief Executive Officer of VIA Rail, in a statement. “We sympathize with the passengers and communities whose plans have been impacted in the past couple of days due to the uncertainty caused by this potential strike. As we look forward to ratification, these tentative agreements allow our teams to get back to doing what we do best: serving Canadians throughout the country.”

VIA Rail says operations will run as scheduled during the ratification process.

Unifor had set back several deadlines that would have halted the company’s operations, coast to coast. On Thursday July 7, it set a strike deadline for July 11 at 12:01 a.m. That time was eventually pushed to 4:00 p.m. and again to 12:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

“Fighting back against the concessions that VIA proposed wasn’t easy, but the resolve, commitment and solidarity of our VIA Rail members, helped the bargaining committees to push forward and achieve this tentative agreement,” said Scott Doherty, Lead Negotiator and Executive Assistant to the National President of Unifor, in a statement. “I want to thank our members and the travelling public for their patience and support, while we continued to negotiate past the strike deadline to achieve this agreement. Without them this deal would not have been possible.”