The officials at VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) announced that the company has reached tentative deals with Unifor‘s Council 4000 and Local 100, the union representing about 2,400 VIA Rail employees working in its stations, on board its trains, in its maintenance centers, the VIA Customer Center, and administrative offices.

These tentative agreements are subject to a ratification vote by VIA Rail’s Unifor members. Once ratified, the collective agreements will be retroactive to January 1, 2022, and in effect through December 31, 2024.

The details of the agreements will only be released following ratification by members.

“VIA Rail is pleased to have negotiated these agreements and recognizes the hard work of both parties during this process,” said Martin R Landry, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We sympathize with the passengers and communities whose plans have been impacted in the past couple of days due to the uncertainty caused by this potential strike. As we look forward to ratification, these tentative agreements allow our teams to get back to doing what we do best: serving Canadians throughout the country.”

VIA Rail regrets any uncertainties that the strike notice issued by the union may have caused. We want to reassure our passengers that as we await ratification operations will run as scheduled. VIA Rail continues to offer customers the opportunity to make changes to their travel plans without service fees for any departures prior to July 31, 2022.

As Canada’s national rail passenger service, VIA Rail and all its employees are mandated to provide safe, efficient and economical passenger transportation service, in both official languages of our country. VIA Rail operates intercity, regional and transcontinental trains linking over 400 communities across Canada, and about 180 more communities through intermodal partnerships, and safely transported over 5 million passengers in 2019.