No Clear Winner in FCA Mandatory Retirement Decision

[Rockie]

There is no other side Fanblade, at least it wasn't the FP60 guys. The other side (if you want to call it that, I don't) was the law and society, and fighting that was stupid. Making it about the FP60 crowd was even more stupid. We're supposed to be intelligent...

[Fanblade]

Your trying to establish the moral high ground again. There isn't any except for a few ultruistic souls. I can't read minds. Maybe you are one of them.

People realized that a candy filled pianyatta was about to get split wide open. Both sides deliberately began positioning themselves for the moment it did. Some were lucky enough to have great timing and pounced on the candy. The rest lost.

That's it. No more to see here.

If the pianyatta had been filed with air? No conflict.

[Rockie]

I see you're still trapped in this "us" against "them" thing. The FP60 crowd had absolutely no effect on the law - none. The law was changing no matter what, and we let ourselves get completely distracted by a useless fight against our own people. Society marched on and the company walked away with all the marbles as usual. Until people like you get smart and start seeing the big picture we are doomed to repeat this kind of fiasco forever.

[Fanblade]

I see you're still trapped in this "us" against "them" thing. The FP60 crowd had absolutely no effect on the law - none.

Correct. What I am saying is that the FP60 side was equally responsible for this issue not getting resolved in house. For it heading towards what looks like 20 years of litigation.

The reason was a bun fight over money. For the most part, both sides are equally at fault.

No one should be trying to take the moral high ground. To people like me this looks a lot like a bunch rich people saying me me me.

Nothing more.

[Rockie]

What would you have had them do instead, submit without complaint to being discriminated against? That's not realistic nor was ACPA's response. We imposed discrimination against them because we were mad, hardly a mature reaction. And it garnered an entirely predictable response and set of consequences.

[Fanblade]

Yup, it's always the other guys fault for not giving me what I FELT I was entitled to.

This question is directed at both sides of the conflict. Did anyone put forward a zero cost solution to the opposing side?

If this wasn't about money, why not?

[Rockie]

There is a lot about this issue you are clearly not aware of Fanblade. Over the years Raymond Hall and others have provided the history necessary to have an informed opinion that the union did not. It will take a lot of time but I encourage you to read it.

[FADEC]

From time to time, someone says that no FP60 members opposed age 60 till it came their turn.

When Ross Stevenson was opposing Mandatory Retirement back in the day, I spoke up and said Mandatory Retirement made no sense, particularly in a Competency based job. Mandatory Retirement was simply wrong; I was a junior F/O at the time.

I had a discussion with a Senior Captain in which he strongly supported Age 60, saying that was the deal.

I have subsequently found out that when he was hired, retirement was 45; somehow he stayed on past that despite that being the deal when he was hired.

Don't forget that when 45 became 60, all those who were hired with 45 as a mandatory retirement age stayed.

When ICAO was changing age from 60 to 65, I argued that AC would benefit, and ACPA should support the change in order to gain benefits for the members; Ray was one of many making that case.

ACPA took the low road and the members got nothing.

Now ICAO has slipped in age 65 for all pilots; no reason given. Who promoted that?

[Raymond Hall]

Yup, it's always the other guys fault for not giving me what I FELT I was entitled to. This question is directed at both sides of the conflict. Did anyone put forward a zero cost solution to the opposing side? If this wasn't about money, why not?

I would agree that money was the main driving force. But it wasn't just the "money" to which you refer, namely money for the over age-60 pilots. It was also about another "money." Money for the pilots who would be temporarily adversely affected by the potential adverse impact on their career progression.

Let me refresh your memory of some of the points that I asserted in posts that I made as early as 2006.

1. Prior to 1978, when the Canadian Human Rights Act was enacted, there was no "contract," implied or otherwise, foisted upon anyone hired, including myself, in the form of a quid pro quo, committing them to retire at age 60. If the age restriction changed after they were hired, it was changed, pure and simple, just like when other elements in the environment changed, such as the privatization of Air Canada, the deregulation of the airline industry, and the bankruptcy of many of Air Canada's competitors, none of which could be predicted with any degree of accuracy;

2. The age 60 restriction, when introduced in the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1978, was conditional on age 60 being the "normal age of retirement" for individuals engaged in similar work. Conditional! The condition had to be met in order for mandatory retirement to apply. It was not absolute. If the condition was not met, mandatory retirement was illegal, regardless of the collective agreement.

3. As of 2006, Air Canada was the only airline in Canada still imposing mandatory retirement of pilots at age 60--in other words, the normal age of retirement even then was likely not 60; the condition provision of the law was not satisfied. As early as 2006, what Air Canada pilots "wanted," referendum or no referendum, was irrelevant to the law. The legal issue was whether or not the exemption was satisfied. ACPA and the employer's contractual provision forcing retirement at age 60 was valid only if the legal pre-condition was met. That was the law.

4. By 2006, every jurisdiction in Canada, save for the federal jurisdiction, had repealed its mandatory retirement exemption; even the federal government had made several attempts over the course of the previous 10 years to repeal the exemption, but all the proposals failed for reasons other than those related to the merits of the issue. For example, some bills died on the Order paper when elections were called, and the issue didn't get back to the top of the heap for some time afterwards, with the new governments.

So it was no leap of faith, then, to count the existing federal legislation as having a very tenuous future indeed.

The issue, therefore, was not "if," but "when?" and given "when," the logical next question was, "How should we deal with it?"

5. "How should a union respond?" We needed to ask ourselves strategically as a group, I argued, "What should be our long-term best course of action?" It didn't take a genius to see that given the inevitable impending change, we needed a strategy to not only manage the change to the benefit of all pilots, but to avail ourselves of a large portion of the huge windfall ultimately to be bestowed upon the employer, should the change not be embraced and managed properly by the union.

6. However, instead of acting strategically, ACPA sub-delegated its management of the issue to the members themselves in the form of a referendum for the members, and, in my view, without providing a proper legal and economic opinion to guide the members as to the consequences of the two mutually exclusive alternatives--embrace or oppose the proposition.

The result, in my view, was the union failing to provide leadership as to the potential for benefiting from the inevitable change, then choosing a path that divided its own members against each other, engaging in litigation that cost the Association hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in legal fees, and that then left the union with a huge potential financial liability (that still exists), if, at the end of the day, it lost its case.

You will note that I have said nothing in this post about the motivation of members of the Fly Past 60 Coalition. For myself, forced out six years ago, flying was my life. My legal work was my insurance policy to protect against the loss of my licence, but flying was my life. I learned to fly in Air Cadets at age 16 and simply wanted to keep working a few more years with the great group of people that I had been associated with for all of my professional life, including the two years that I represented the pilots as ACPA Chair facing off in negotiations directly across the table from Robert Milton and Calin Rovinescu.

Yes, I would have continued to draw a large salary, and yes, I would have impeded the career progression of others slightly by not leaving at age 60.

But my point was simply this. That was going to happen anyway, the only issue was when.

As it turned out, it was 2012, not 2006 or 2009, and I had nothing to do with the government's final success in getting the change into law.

One final thing. Please don't do what so many other have done, namely, accuse me or any of the other members of the Coalition pursuing this valid legal issue through due legal process, of greed, expressly or impliedly. Personal economic interest was obviously also an interest shared by those who voted to oppose changes to the age 60 restriction.

In fact, I have spent the last ten years of my life carrying this torch without charging any legal fees for my work, at great opportunity cost to myself. There have been many legal jobs, attractive both professionally and financially, for which I am eminently qualified and that I would have loved to have taken advantage of, but was unable to do so, because of my commitment to my fellow pilots to see this issue through to finality, a commitment that is unwavering.

It is the issue that drives this motivation, not any potential economic benefit to be obtained, that keeps me and the other pilots supporting this issue steadfastly seeking finality to the questions in issue.

[Doug Moore]

Let me refresh your memory of some of the points that I asserted in posts that I made as early as 2006 ... The issue, therefore, was not "if," but "when?" and given "when," the logical next question was, "How should we deal with it?" ... However, instead of acting strategically, ACPA sub-delegated its management of the issue to the members themselves in the form of a referendum for the members, and, in my view, without providing a proper legal and economic opinion to guide the members as to the consequences ... But my point was simply this. That was going to happen anyway, the only issue was when.

Hi Ray,

I also was asking back in 2006 for calmer heads to prevail and was adding my 2 cents to the discussion such as what I wrote here: http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... &start=375

In my view, ACPA had a golden opportunity to demonstrate how it could represent the interests of all it members, but instead, by choosing to take sides, revealed that the "roots" of a "grassroots" union can run very shallow indeed. ACPA has spent a horrendous amount of money defending the indefensible, and, as has been suggested elsewhere, did so with the ulterior motive of force-retiring as many of it members as possible before the law was formally changed. Nice.

While this dog is dead for me (but the grieving obviously still lingers), your dog is still very much alive and my hat is off to you for sticking with it.

Cheers,

[Fanblade]

Yup, it's always the other guys fault for not giving me what I FELT I was entitled to. This question is directed at both sides of the conflict. Did anyone put forward a zero cost solution to the opposing side? If this wasn't about money, why not?

I would agree that money was the main driving force. But it wasn't just the "money" to which you refer, namely money for the over age-60 pilots. It was also about another "money." Money for the pilots who would be temporarily adversely affected by the potential adverse impact on their career progression.

Let me refresh your memory of some of the points that I asserted in posts that I made as early as 2006.

1. Prior to 1978, when the Canadian Human Rights Act was enacted, there was no "contract," implied or otherwise, foisted upon anyone hired, including myself, in the form of a quid pro quo, committing them to retire at age 60. If the age restriction changed after they were hired, it was changed, pure and simple, just like when other elements in the environment changed, such as the privatization of Air Canada, the deregulation of the airline industry, and the bankruptcy of many of Air Canada's competitors, none of which could be predicted with any degree of accuracy;

2. The age 60 restriction, when introduced in the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1978, was conditional on age 60 being the "normal age of retirement" for individuals engaged in similar work. Conditional! The condition had to be met in order for mandatory retirement to apply. It was not absolute. If the condition was not met, mandatory retirement was illegal, regardless of the collective agreement.

3. As of 2006, Air Canada was the only airline in Canada still imposing mandatory retirement of pilots at age 60--in other words, the normal age of retirement even then was likely not 60; the condition provision of the law was not satisfied. As early as 2006, what Air Canada pilots "wanted," referendum or no referendum, was irrelevant to the law. The legal issue was whether or not the exemption was satisfied. ACPA and the employer's contractual provision forcing retirement at age 60 was valid only if the legal pre-condition was met. That was the law.

4. By 2006, every jurisdiction in Canada, save for the federal jurisdiction, had repealed its mandatory retirement exemption; even the federal government had made several attempts over the course of the previous 10 years to repeal the exemption, but all the proposals failed for reasons other than those related to the merits of the issue. For example, some bills died on the Order paper when elections were called, and the issue didn't get back to the top of the heap for some time afterwards, with the new governments.

So it was no leap of faith, then, to count the existing federal legislation as having a very tenuous future indeed.

The issue, therefore, was not "if," but "when?" and given "when," the logical next question was, "How should we deal with it?"

5. "How should a union respond?" We needed to ask ourselves strategically as a group, I argued, "What should be our long-term best course of action?" It didn't take a genius to see that given the inevitable impending change, we needed a strategy to not only manage the change to the benefit of all pilots, but to avail ourselves of a large portion of the huge windfall ultimately to be bestowed upon the employer, should the change not be embraced and managed properly by the union.

6. However, instead of acting strategically, ACPA sub-delegated its management of the issue to the members themselves in the form of a referendum for the members, and, in my view, without providing a proper legal and economic opinion to guide the members as to the consequences of the two mutually exclusive alternatives--embrace or oppose the proposition.

The result, in my view, was the union failing to provide leadership as to the potential for benefiting from the inevitable change, then choosing a path that divided its own members against each other, engaging in litigation that cost the Association hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in legal fees, and that then left the union with a huge potential financial liability (that still exists), if, at the end of the day, it lost its case.

You will note that I have said nothing in this post about the motivation of members of the Fly Past 60 Coalition. For myself, forced out six years ago, flying was my life. My legal work was my insurance policy to protect against the loss of my licence, but flying was my life. I learned to fly in Air Cadets at age 16 and simply wanted to keep working a few more years with the great group of people that I had been associated with for all of my professional life, including the two years that I represented the pilots as ACPA Chair facing off in negotiations directly across the table from Robert Milton and Calin Rovinescu.

Yes, I would have continued to draw a large salary, and yes, I would have impeded the career progression of others slightly by not leaving at age 60.

But my point was simply this. That was going to happen anyway, the only issue was when.

As it turned out, it was 2012, not 2006 or 2009, and I had nothing to do with the government's final success in getting the change into law.

One final thing. Please don't do what so many other have done, namely, accuse me or any of the other members of the Coalition pursuing this valid legal issue through due legal process, of greed, expressly or impliedly. Personal economic interest was obviously also an interest shared by those who voted to oppose changes to the age 60 restriction.

In fact, I have spent the last ten years of my life carrying this torch without charging any legal fees for my work, at great opportunity cost to myself. There have been many legal jobs, attractive both professionally and financially, for which I am eminently qualified and that I would have loved to have taken advantage of, but was unable to do so, because of my commitment to my fellow pilots to see this issue through to finality, a commitment that is unwavering.

It is the issue that drives this motivation, not any potential economic benefit to be obtained, that keeps me and the other pilots supporting this issue steadfastly seeking finality to the questions in issue.

Raymond,

Great post. Informative.

I will state this very clearly. There are some ulturistic individuals such as yourself that I may have offended. My oppologies to all of you. My intent is not to offend.

With some introspec I suppose it makes sence that those most emotionally invested, (not sure that is the best term. What I mean is not financially invested, but purely morally invested) would probably be the most persistently vocal.

Please accept my sincerest apologies.

That however doesn't change my opinion over the issue in general. For most this was simply maneuvering to capitalize on change.

[Rockie]

Fanblade.

What is your opinion on forcing people to retire at an arbitrary age before they want to and while they are still capable of doing the job? I mean anybody, but leave AC pilots out of the equation when you answer because I want to know if you think it is discriminatory or not.

[Fanblade]

Fanblade.

What is your opinion on forcing people to retire at an arbitrary age before they want to and while they are still capable of doing the job? I mean anybody, but leave AC pilots out of the equation when you answer because I want to know if you think it is discriminatory or not.

Its discriminatory. Everyone knows that. The law is the law is the law.

The problem is not a lack of understanding or empathy. It's not about disliking or wanting to repress the rights of older people. No one cares how long an individual chooses to work. It's their time on the planet. They get to choose how to spend it.

The conflict has been driven by the monetary impact the change created. If there had been no monetary impact, we would not be having this conversation because the issue would never have existed. Raymond would still be working at AC.

The issue is discrimination, however the root of the conflict is not. It's money. This applies to both sides of the conflict.

Here is a quote from Raymond saying the same thing. For some reason he seems to think I am just calling out the FP 60 group. I'm not.

"I would agree that money was the main driving force. But it wasn't just the "money" to which you refer, namely money for the over age-60 pilots. It was also about another "money." Money for the pilots who would be temporarily adversely affected by the potential adverse impact on their career progression."

The root cause of the conflict was actually money, yet noone sat down to address it. It would have required compromise from both sides but certainly would have been better than the current result. Since no one was willing to compromise this was destined to become a bun fight.

Instead this is what happened.

"People realized that a candy filled pianyatta was about to get split wide open. Both sides deliberately began positioning themselves for the moment it did. Some were lucky enough to have great timing and pounced on the candy. The rest lost."

Both sides own that. But no one is. Each side points their finger at the other to place blame.

From my view point no side should be trying to claim the moral high ground.

[Rockie]

From my view point no side should be trying to claim the moral high ground.

Nobody is claiming the moral high ground, they were just asserting their rights and you can't fault that. But there was certainly a low road and ACPA took it.

As the legal representative of all Air Canada pilots it was their responsibility to first and foremost not allow discrimination to take place against any of its members. Something no other group or union in the country has any problem understanding. Instead ACPA did their best to delay implementation in order to discriminate against as many of its members as they could. Shameful. Next it was their responsibility to minimize the impact on all pilots which they utterly failed at.

[Fanblade]

From my view point no side should be trying to claim the moral high ground.

Nobody is claiming the moral high ground, they were just asserting their rights and you can't fault that. But there was certainly a low road and ACPA took it.

As the legal representative of all Air Canada pilots it was their responsibility to first and foremost not allow discrimination to take place against any of its members. Something no other group or union in the country has any problem understanding. Instead ACPA did their best to delay implementation in order to discriminate against as many of its members as they could. Shameful. Next it was their responsibility to minimize the impact on all pilots which they utterly failed at.

Still pointing eh?

Bad ACPA. BAD BAD ACPA. But your completely innocent. I get it.

You know that when you point at someone three figures point back.

No other union in this country had a pianyatta the size of ours. It was all about the money.

[Rockie]

Yes, BAD ACPA. And the only thing I'm guilty of was wasting my breath trying to get them to fulfil their legal and ethical obligation.

[Fanblade]

And the only thing I'm guilty of was wasting my breath trying to get them to fulfil their legal and ethical obligation.

No asking ACPA to address the core issue? Money.

[Rockie]

Money wasn't the core issue, discrimination was. But if you read back you will see that myself and many other people were trying to get ACPA to deal with the money issue as well to no avail and the company got it all.

[Raymond Hall]

No asking ACPA to address the core issue? Money.

First of all, with respect to your earlier post, no apology required or expected. We are all adults and we are responsible for our own choices. I chose to donate my expertise, time and energy to this issue because I understood the law and I could see the futility of the union's stance, which ultimately cost all the members a huge loss by not realizing any economic benefit whatsoever from the end of mandatory retirement.

Now, with respect to your most recent post, I don't quite understand what you expect would have happened if anyone did approach ACPA to address the money issue. That issue was deeply entrenched in the form of the formula pay system that had evolved over decades into a steeply descending curve, with pilots at the top making huge bucks in comparison to pilots at the bottom.

No other employee group had anywhere need the disparity between the top and the bottom employees on their respective scales. Changing the system was simply not in the cards, absent a wholesale revolution and a very, very long phase-in period, with rights expunged only on a grandfathered basis.

So, no. No-one approached ACPA to deal with the money issue, because any attempt to bring change would have been even more hopeless than persuading them to try to reap some benefit from the impending end of mandatory retirement, even assuming that the union possessed the necessary leadership to even consider that option, which, in my view, it didn't.

Maybe you can suggest how you would have gone at that problem?

[Fanblade]

Raymond,

I realize it would have been difficult. It would certainly have been better than what happened. When that painyatta split it was instead a free for all. Even the company was in on the action.

Without dealing with the monitary issues, this had no chance of getting resolved in house. It guaranteed conflict.

Anyone who was an obstacle to the monitary issues getting resolve was an obstacle to a solution. Anyone who refuses to even acknowledge the issue is an even bigger obsticale to resolution.

What I am saying is you guys have made choices that have contributed to the evolution of this conflict.