In ordering an end to the nationwide rail strike by Canadian Pacific workers, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives appear to be following a long-standing tradition.

Canadian governments, whether Liberal or Conservative, have never let railway strikes drag on. Back-to-work legislation has been imposed on striking rail workers at least seven times since 1950.

What is dramatically new about this particular majority government, however, is the break-neck speed with which it acts. It legislates an end to strikes immediately after — and in some cases before — they begin.

It has introduced the concept of pre-emptive warfare to labour negotiations.

The CP strike began last Wednesday. Back-to-work legislation was threatened on Thursday and introduced in the Commons the following Monday.

Compare that to the way in which the Harper minority government handled a similar strike by Canadian National Railway workers in 2007.

In that case, workers were either on strike or locked out for a total of 23 days over three months before the Conservative government — with Liberal support — brought in back-to-work legislation

That same year, CP rail maintenance workers went on strike for three weeks. Yet here, the Conservative government did nothing.

“The government doesn’t introduce a law each time there is a strike,” then labour minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn explained.

By 2009, however, the Conservative approach had subtly changed. In November, the government introduced back-to-work legislation just three days into another CN strike.

The two sides settled before the bill could be debated in the Commons. But Rona Ambrose, who by this time had become labour minister, credited it with ending the dispute.

“Back-to-work legislation applied real pressure on the parties,” she said.

It was a lesson the Conservative government — and employers — took to heart.

The 2009 CN strike came to an end after both sides made concessions. But by 2011, with the Conservatives fully in control of Parliament, it was clear that mutual concessions were no longer necessary.

If Ottawa was prepared to outlaw strikes from the get-go, then labour was left with virtually no bargaining power. Employers only had to maintain a hard line.

In the context of a deteriorating economy, the chances were that any arbitrator appointed by government to come up with a final settlement would lean their way. Crown corporation Canada Post and private carrier Air Canada were quick to pick up on the new reality.

Both employers were obdurate in bargaining with their workers. Both were rewarded by immediate back-to-work legislation as soon as those workers attempted to strike.

In a dispute with its pilots, Air Canada didn’t even wait for employees to strike. It locked them out and then called on government to legislate an end to the dispute.

Lisa Raitt, the current labour minister, immediately obliged.

What has the government accomplished by this?

First, it has politicized federal labour relations in a manner unseen since the 1930s. The 2007 and 2009 rail strikes were relegated to the business pages. This CP strike is front page news.

As former Ontario premier Mike Harris found when he took on the teachers’ unions, this does not necessarily work to a government’s long-term advantage

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Second, it has demonstrated to labour that traditional methods of industrial dispute resolution no longer work. There is no point in formal bargaining if the deck is stacked.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has responded by seeking redress from the courts. For other workers, informal job actions, such as the wildcat strikes and pilot sickouts that have afflicted Air Canada, are the only options left. Expect more of these.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.