THE arbitrator appointed to resolve Canada’s railway dispute to protect the North American economy has ordered workers at the country’s two major railways back to work so both can resume operating.

Saturday’s order means that Canadian National (CN) will be able to continue operating the trains it restarted Friday morning just over a day after it locked out workers. 

But Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) is unlikely to be able to restart its operations before this morning, when workers were ordered to return.

Railways play a crucial role in the North American economy with CPKC and CN delivering the equivalent of £556 million a day and billions of pounds in goods between the United States and Canada every month. 

Even though both companies’ trains in the US and Mexico continued operating, the lockouts caused a significant disruption.

A number of smaller short-line freight railroads that handle local deliveries continued operating across Canada but were unable to hand off shipments to either of the major railroads while they were idle.

The Teamsters union representing workers said that it will comply with the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) order and send its members back on the job, but it will also move forward with a legal challenge of the arbitration order.

Teamsters Canada Rail Conference president Paul Boucher said: “This decision by the CIRB sets a dangerous precedent. It signals to corporate Canada that large companies need only stop their operations for a few hours, inflict short-term economic pain and the federal government will step in to break a union.”

He said: “The rights of Canadian workers have been significantly diminished today.”

Canadian Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon ordered the end of the lockouts just over 16 hours after they began.

Mr MacKinnon said that he expects the rail companies to resume operations as soon as possible.