Ottawa watching as airline workers threaten strike
Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said Wednesday she was taking the threat of a strike at Air Canada over the March break “very seriously” after the airline’s largest union served notice it was prepared to walk off the job as early as Monday if a new labour agreement is not reached.
The federal government was once again being urged not to intervene in Air Canada’s labour negotiations by critics who contend it does little to mend the airline’s frayed relations with employees.
The International Association of Machinists and Aero- space Workers, which represents 8,600 ground crew and mechanics at the airline, rejected a new labour agreement with the airline two weeks ago but returned to the bargaining table this week. The talks broke off late Tuesday after the airline balked at a list of demands from the union, an IAMAW official said.
As a result, the union served notice it was prepared to walk off the job as early as 10:01 p.m. Sunday if a new deal could not be reached by then.
Dave Ritchie, IAMAW vicepresident, said in his 40 years of collective bargaining he has never seen the level of anger he sees now at Air Canada.
During a news conference Wednesday he said he was frustrated the airline was not offering the union’s members a better deal. “They are absolutely disgusted that this corporation will not recognize that they’ve given to the point that they are not prepared to give anymore,” he said.
Whether the union will be allowed to strike remains to be seen.
Last June, Raitt tabled a back-to-work bill in the House to put an end to a three-day strike by the airline’s customer sales and service agents before the parties agreed to put their outstanding issues before final offer arbitration. Last October she referred a dispute with its flight attendants to the Canada Industrial Relations Board to head off another strike.
That dispute was put before final offer arbitration as well, where a previously rejected tentative agreement was forced upon the flight attendants.
A back-to-work bill for Air Canada workers remains on the government’s order paper and could be introduced either today or Friday, a spokeswoman for the Speaker’s Office said.
“A work stoppage is not in the best interests of Canadian public or Canadian businesses,” Raitt said in a statement urging both sides to return to the bargaining table.
An Air Canada spokesman, Peter Fitzpatrick, told Postmedia News in an e-mail that “the lines of communication remain open,” although he declined to comment on the union’s news conference. IAMAW also said it was open to returning to the table.
Air Canada said it had a contingency plan in place to minimize the impact of a strike.
Raitt’s office would not say what the next step would be if a new deal is not met, but others said the signals were clear.
Ottawa is “going to intervene again. They’re not going to let this go,” said Ann Frost, an industrial relations professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University in London, Ont.
She noted the union’s leadership doesn’t have much to lose by serving strike notice, given Raitt’s past willingness to intervene.
“Maybe (the union) thinks that they will do better at arbitration,” Frost said. “You might as well go on strike, have the federal government legislate you back to work, and then at least you can say to your members, ‘Well, the arbitrator made us do it.’ ”
Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers’ Association of Canada, said he’s heard from about 30 people who are “frustrated” and “concerned” about a potential strike.
“It does have the potential to be very disruptive to travellers,” he said.
Threatening to strike during a busy holiday period is a “reality,” Cran added. “It is general practice of unions to seek the (most) disruptive period they can.”
Nearly two-thirds of I am aw members voted down the tentative agreement at the airline two weeks ago, which included wage and benefit improvements and called for new hires to move into a new multi-company defined benefit pension program.
Given Air Canada lost $250 million in 2011, Frost said, most employees would be “ecstatic” with such a deal. But she noted the well has been poisoned in Air Canada’s negotiations with its employees dating back to its bankruptcy restructuring in 2004.
“Labour relations at Air Canada are particularly nasty. There’s no love lost there and that has a long history behind it,” Frost said.
Last October, a strike was cancelled after Raitt submitted two referrals to the Canada Industrial Relations Board seeking a review of the contract talks. The move angered the union, which called it government interference.
Anil Verma, an industrial relations professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, said Ottawa’s continual tampering with the bargaining process was not helping mend those relations. “There would be a sense of grievance that will linger and fester,” he said.