A rail strike has been temporarily averted after the federal labour minister ordered employees of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. to vote on the company’s final offers, just hours before they were set to walk off the job.

Statements from both CP Rail and two unions representing workers say the minister’s order to administer a ratification vote on each of the two offers follows advice of federal mediators.

In a release late Friday, representatives for the unions recommended that their members reject the company’s offers...

This was excerpted from the 20 April 2018 edition of the Financial Post.