News & Reviews News Wire SMART-TD considers strike against CPKC

SMART-TD considers strike against CPKC

By Stuart Chirls | July 13, 2025

Union members say railroad has made job changes with use of temporary deal meant to address service problems

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Train with red, yellow, and black locomotives at grade crossing
Kansas City Southern locomotives lead a westbound CPKC manifest freight through Wauwatosa, Wis., on June 26, 2025. David Lassen

The union representing Canadian Pacific Kansas City conductors is polling members on a possible strike, claiming the railroad took advantage of a service crisis to make workplace job changes on the former Kansas City Southern.

The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division (SMART-TD) Local 457’s General Committee of Adjustment is polling members on a possible strike vote, General Chairman Samuel Habjan confirmed in a brief phone interview with FreightWaves late Saturday (July 12, 2025). The results of the poll are expected today. Habjan would not speculate on the results of the poll, or the union’s plans.

An email signed by “union members local 781” and obtained by FreightWaves claimed that the railroad was using the service crisis to cut jobs and reduce some employees’ working hours.

The email said that CPKC was already facing a personnel shortage prior to the May switch to CP’s computer system on the former KCS; issues with that cutover led to significant service issues on parts of the legacy KCS system [see “CPKC system cutover triggers …,” Trains News Wire, June 10, 2025]. The email claims the issues reflect the railroad’s adoption of Precision Scheduled Railroading operating practices, as well as aggressive cost cutting.

“Earlier this month, SMART-TD reached an agreement with CPKC to permit the temporary use of “loan-out” crews from other territories to help address the shortage,” the email stated. “However, following this arrangement, CPKC management proceeded to cut approximately half of the established yard jobs in Shreveport (La.) Terminal. They placed the loan-out crews on a separate [job] board and began assigning them work in place of long-standing KCS and Louisiana & Arkansas [Railway] employees.

“This decision has effectively restricted the seniority rights of the union employees already on the property and further strained local operations.”

Seniority is based on an employee’s length of service with a railroad, and often dictates which job assignments an employee can choose from.

CPKC merged with KCS in April 2023, creating the first single-line carrier serving the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

The service disruptions caused significant problems for shippers on legacy KCS lines, including chemical producers in Louisiana, forcing CPKC to deploy personnel to verify the location of individual railcars by hand. Some companies said they moved traffic from rail to truck in order to maintain operations.

The Surface Transportation Board ultimately asked CPKC for information on the issues and its recovery plans [see “Regulators ask CPKC to outline …,” News Wire, June 17, 2025].  In its most recent update to the board last week, CPKC reported overall improvement but said on-time performance for merchandise trains and dwell at some yards remains a problem [see “CPKC reports mixed progress …,” News Wire, July 11, 2025].

CPKC had no immediate comment on the email.

— A version of this article originally appeared at FreightWaves.com.

6 thoughts on “SMART-TD considers strike against CPKC

  1. They replaced an old system from around 2005 with an older system from 1999(green screen). They implemented too many changes at one time instead of doing it in stages. They’re doing everything they can to recoup their $30 billion investment of KCS as quickly as possible. Going to the older system is supposed to save money but has done the opposite. CPKC tried to go from CTC to ABS to run trains but were stopped by either the FRA or STB.
    Top management isn’t being held accountable but were bragging about millions of dollars per person in bonuses last year.
    Morale has been low on the KCS properties since CP took over but got even lower after May 3.
    There is a rumor going around that the company is deliberately being run into the ground in order to declare bankruptcy and sell off parts of the former KCS that it was forced to acquire during the STB meetings (the Meridian Speedway specifically).
    Hopefully CPKC doesn’t become a case study in how to destroy a billion dollar per month company.

  2. I think there is more to this story than either CPKC and SMART-TD is sharing.

    More questions are raised by this report than what it answers.

    – Why would CPKC be so compelled to bring in union employees to a district they have never worked?
    – Why were the KCS/A&L union labor force so unprepared for the transition?
    – If the union job titles haven’t changed, why do they feel compelled to strike?
    – Did the SMART-TD actually “ask” CPKC why they did what they did during the service breakdown, was SMART-TD even involved or did the legacy KCS members push back on the new processes from CPKC?

    As I noted earlier, there is more here than what is being shared.

  3. That’s a rotten way to treat your local employees. Maybe CPKC needs a strike in order to remind management how NOT to treat the Union men and women who work there.

  4. The simplest type of merger – we’ve only seen this one recent decades and will never see another — is end-to-end. If you can’t make an end-to-end merger work, there is nothing that you can do.

  5. Now we know there is more to the story of delays than first reported. Do not mess with seniority. Especially when it means being kept from your assignment that your seniority holds.

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