The President and CEO of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce says impacts from a potential rail strike would be wide reaching if both sides can't come to an agreement by Thursday.
Negotiations between CN Rail, the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference continued over the weekend with no signs of progress.
The Teamsters released a press release on Sunday saying workers will walk off the job as of 12:01 a.m. on Thursday unless the parties can reach an agreement.
CN later issued its own notice that it intends to lock out workers unless an agreement or binding arbitration happens.
Labour agreements for both railway companies expired at the end of 2023.
Safety, scheduling and wages are among the key issues in discussions.
Rakesh Naidu says they're very concerned because they know that any disruption of goods carried over rail can affect the local economy significantly.
"When there's a disruption the cost of goods goes up, because the supply chain gets disrupted. And we've seen supply chain disruptions in the aftermath of COVID how that led to a price escalation and how consumers ended up paying a significant increase," he said.
Naidu says recently they've been seeing an improvement around supply chains but this potential stoppage could impact that leading to higher prices for consumers and overall supply issues for critical items.
"Our auto industry depends on components that arrive from different places on rail. And if we don't get components in time then the supply chain in the auto industry can get disrupted. We get important commodities through rail, grain included, and that could get disrupted."
He says a rail strike could impact ongoing projects in the region as well, and when something like this happens the ripple effects can also impact cross border trade which wouldn't reflect well on Canada's reputation as a trading partner.
"A stoppage is the last thing that we need and clearly as a country that is trading a lot, is an export oriented economy, and especially in Windsor-Essex. We certainly don't want another issue to come and tarnish our image," Naidu said.
Naidu says they've been in touch with other chambers in Ontario, and across the country, on top of reaching out to elected officials to raise awareness about the potential challenges this could create and push for a fair deal between the two sides.
Labour Minister Steven Mackinnon on Monday called on all the parties involved to "do the hard work necessary" to prevent a potential railway stoppage, and gave no indication the federal government would be willing to intervene in collective bargaining negotiations.
- with files from CTV News
