Here is a situation that is not ideal: between 9,000 and 10,000 unionized workers at two railways go on strike, costing the economy $341 million per day, or more than four per cent of total GDP in a country with over 40 million people. Here is something else that is not ideal: the federal government inserts itself into arrangements between employers and workers by imposing binding arbitration (which the union did not want) and ordering the railway work stoppage to end.