The recent work stoppage by Canadian Pacific Railway employees has had a significant impact on the auto industry, disrupting the shipment of vehicles and components, causing grief for manufacturers, suppliers, dealers and customers.
Recently, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers’ of Canada (AIAMC) and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, made a request, urging members of Parliament to seek a timely resolution to the dispute, which has already cost the economy millions of dollars in lost productivity.
Mark Nantais, President of the CVMA, said that the ongoing dispute is costing some association members around $100,000 per day for additional logistics to ship vehicles to their delivery points. He also said that “each [member company] could expect potential losses in unrecoverable revenue to be as high as $1.5 million. It is time to work together for our collective interests,” he declared, “minimizing the impact the work stoppage will have on the Canadian economy.”
David Adams, President of the AIAMC added that “resolution of the dispute at CP Rail is in everyone’s interest.”
On Monday, the federal government announced back-to-work legislation; that will likely witness CP employees returning to their jobs by the end of this week, even though the company and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents CP workers, are essentially still at loggerheads.
Given that the economy is still fragile, particularly south of the border, any short-term solution is seen as beneficial. So far, disruptions in vehicle and component supplies have wreaked havoc, threatening to plunge North America into another recession.
