In Canada and the USA, railway workers from Unifor, the Transportation Communications Union and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers have won landmark victories through union organising.
Railway workers across North America are demonstrating the power of union organising and collective bargaining – and have delivered tangible gains for workers and their communities as a result.
In Canada, International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) affiliate Unifor won a legal battle that ensures new bargaining unit workers will be hired, prohibited outsourcing will end with historic union work returned, and workers impacted by the outsourcing are compensated.
The arbitration victory against Canadian National Railway (CN) means that it will have to reinvest and reopen the Transcona Shops’ Wheel and Traction Motor Shops – two major railway maintenance and manufacturing facilities in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where heavy railcar wheelsets and traction motors are assembled, repaired, refurbished and otherwise manufactured.
The Transcona community is known for its deep links with the rail industry. It was hit hard when CN closed the shops – which are vital to maintenance for the CN railway network – during the Covid-19 pandemic and outsourced its work. The impacts were severely felt by three Unifor bargaining units, Local 100, Local 191 and Local 144.
The arbitrator found that CN violated the collective agreement when it failed to properly notify and consult Unifor before it closed the shops and outsourced the union’s work, undermining the ITF affiliate’s ability to protect its members’ work – a core requirement of the collective agreement. These were ruled to be serious rather than technical violations.
“This is truly a landmark victory for Unifor members and the entire community of Transcona, and after six years it brings this work back where it belongs – to the Transcona community,” said Joel Kennedy, Unifor’s National Rail Director and the North America Co-Chair of ITF Railway Section Steering Committee.
“No employer should be able to strip communities of decent, skilled jobs just to enhance profit margins and shareholder payouts. And this win sends a very clear message that employers cannot remove bargaining unit work without consequences.”
In the USA, ITF affiliates, the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), won a contract victory after they joined three other unions in taking the first strike action on the Long Island Rail Road in 30 years.
The Rail Road is the busiest commuter railroad in the country, serving an estimated 300,000 daily riders going between New York City and Long Island. Together, the unions completely shut down the network during a three-day strike in May this year – these unions were part of a larger union coalition representing over 3500 workers with 1,400 members under TCU and 250 with IAM.
Industrial action came after the breakdown of years of negotiations with the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) that began in 2022. Two separate Presidential Emergency Boards reviewing the dispute in 2025 and 2026, with the unions arguing that wage increases should fully maintain employees' real wages in the face of sustained inflation – while the MTA sought lower increases and proposed tying a portion of compensation to work rule changes rather than across-the-board wage growth.
Only three days after the strike began on May 16, the state-run MTA returned with an offer accepted by the unions and ratified by their membership, finalising an agreement for workers in the centennial year of the Railway Labor Act.
Matthew Hollis, National President at the TCU and the North Americal Co-Chair of the ITF Railway Section Steering Committee, said: “This win shows that unionised railway workers won’t settle for anything less than they deserve – fair wages, decent conditions, and respect for the critical work that our members do for the people of Long Island and New York.
“Our members have been put through years of unnecessary hardship as their wages have failed to match inflation. It should never have come to this.”
“These members never lost sight of what they were fighting for,” said Josh Hartford, IAM Special Assistant to the International President for the IAM Rail Division and member of the ITF Railway Section Steering Committee. “They stood together through years of negotiations, mediation and uncertainty. Their determination and discipline made this victory possible and set an example for railroad workers across the country.”
Julio Sosa, ITF Railway Workers Section Chair, said: “These wins show what all trade unions know: when we organise and stand together, we can win what we deserve. And let no railway employers be in doubt, our unions will always stand firm and win in the interests of their members.”
