There are 500 businesses in Richmond involved in freight, logistics and cargo, and 700 manufacturing businesses, many of which could be affected by the lockout of CN and CPKC rail workers that began on Thursday morning, according to the Richmond Chamber of Commerce.
Jason Tse, chamber chair, noted Canada’s railways move about $1 billion of goods every day.
“We are very disappointed that the parties have not been able to negotiate a new contract and that we are now facing disruption to our critical rail network,” Tse said.
Ninety per cent of Richmond-based Layfield Flexible Films’ raw material arrives by rail and they receive deliveries daily.
Mark Rose, president of the company that makes packaging for food, pet, industrial and medical markets, such as dialysis bags, is calling on the government to intervene “immediately.”
“Reliable supply chains are critical, and this strike jeopardizes the safety of our people, communities and environment,” he said in an email.
Furthermore, Rose said the public shouldn’t be at the mercy of union strikes given the “government-protected monopolistic or oligopolistic conditions” of organizations such as CN.
Rose noted his company is dependent on CN Rail -- with no other choices to bring in raw materials -- and should the lockout continue for a week, he will end up laying off his employees and thousands of his clients will be without their products.
Tse from the Richmond chamber called on the federal government to “take action to end the labour dispute on the fastest possible timeline.”
Negotiators returned to the bargaining table Thursday after Canada's two largest railways locked out their employees after midnight in an unprecedented shutdown of freight traffic across the country.
Following months of increasingly bitter negotiations, shipments at Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. ground to a halt as talks broke off Wednesday night, threatening to upend supply chains still reeling from pandemic-related disruptions and a port strike last year.
Each side has accused the other of failing to negotiate seriously. Both railways have called for binding arbitration, which the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference union has rejected.
The union has said both companies are pushing to weaken protections around rest periods and scheduling. CN also aims to implement a "relocation scheme" that would see some employees move to far-flung locations for several months at a time to fill labour gaps, the Teamsters say.
The Teamsters represent 6,000 CN workers and 3,300 CPKC workers.
- With files from Canadian Press
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