Airport security screeners vote to strike
Trudeau workers without a contract for past two months
Passenger and baggage screeners at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport have rejected a contract offer from the Securitas agency and ramped up the dispute by voting unanimously for a strike mandate.
About half of the 600 screeners voted Tuesday, all of them in favour of the strike mandate.
Michel Courcy, staff representative of the Syndicat des métallos associated with the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, said the mandate is good for 60 days.
“I hope the company will get the message (of the 100 per cent favourable vote),” Courcy said.
The Canadian Industrial Relations Board must decide whether the screeners are an essential service, which would make a strike illegal. Courcy said that the union is not against the notion its members provide an essential service and has suggested a compromise to the employer and the CIRB.
“About 80 per cent of us would stay on the job and the other 20 per cent would be allowed to picket.”
Courcy conceded that would delay the screening process at Dorval, but to what he called “an acceptable degree.” He could not say how much extra time it would cost passengers.
The union has been negotiating for 11 months and has been without a contract for the past two months, Courcy said. The main sticking points are monetary and working conditions.
Courcy said that screeners at the Dorval airport make between $15 and $21 per hour, about three per cent less than their counterparts in Quebec City and seven per cent less than at Toronto’s Pearson airport. Their lunchroom has also been eliminated at Trudeau airport, and screeners are not paid for scheduled breaks that they mostly do not take, he added. An arbitrator awarded the Toronto employees a $2.35 perhour pay hike alongside a one-percent increase, he noted.
Securitas, owned by a Swedishbased conglomerate, does not comment or respond to questions.
“We are still hoping to negotiate and reach an agreement without disturbing service at the airport,” Courcy said.
Screeners’ jobs are outsourced to private firms by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA). The Pearson airport workers are employed by Garda Security Group and those in Dorval by Securitas.