AVCANADA

Ok lets talk about who,s overpaid or spoiled.Wheres my crew meal that your going to thow out anyway because when you get to your 5 star overnight you can chose steak or lobster( tax free perdiem).Your biggest stress is wondering which f/a to beguile with your stories of how you will retire to the islands on your sailboat while a/c continuies to pay till your dead.The average private pilot flying calgary saskatoon return has a harder workload than your work week.Wait you only bid the return trip with your sienority and you had a paying passenger kicked out of your first class seat to get there..Seen it done at the gate. I can go on all day with this if you want as I,m off and just getting warmed up.Go ahead rockie....lets here you pull a rabbit out of the funny looking hat..that by contract you didn,t have to pay for.Newspaper propaganda really struck the last nerve I have for your situation.

RCR.. I'm going to take the bait here.

1) Do you realise pilots only get paid when the aircraft is moving? That hour between every flight where they check the aircraft for mechanical malfunctions? free. Where they go over the route and weather to ensure you have a safe and smooth flght? Free. How about after the flight when they complete paperwork/ asses the plane to fly the next day/ laise with maintenance? Free. How about the 30 hours in a hotel in Regina away from their families... you guessed it. Free.

I do 3 checkrides a year, 4 written exams, 1 medical, regularly spend 24 hours at work (yes I sleep there) and sometimes 48. I cannot even go outside the building for those 24/48 hours. I regularly work 60 hours week. I am currently away from home for 10 days. What do I get more than my base salary for doing all that? You guess it. Sweet @#$! all.

Been there done that and moved on, as have hundreds and hundreds of my colleagues at Air Canada and elsewhere. And I might add we did it for a lot less money than you're currently making. You're still in the piss and vinegar stage of your flying career and have little to no insight into our side of the equation. We'll talk again in twenty years.

Hey Rockie,
I work in the same place you do and payed from same customer you want to abandon.

When you become fed up with a company, you have a few choices available to to: You either @#$! off and do something else, suck it up for a few more years for added benefits (for example, you are close to a pension) or you suck it up period.

If so many pilots are unhappy with Air Canada's management, why don't they quit or at least exercise one of the 3 options I just said?

Because there's a fourth option. Prevent the company from changing an agreement that's been in place for decades allowing them to eliminate your job and give it to someone else who will do it cheaper. And there's always someone willing to do it cheaper. That fourth option is permitted under Canadian Labour law along with the right to strike. Lest you need reminding those are but a couple of the rights and freedoms you wear that uniform to defend.

I am trying to understand the feeling of entitlement Air Canada Unions have.

Do you really interpret fighting to keep your job from being given to somebody else as "entitlement"? Perhaps you like so many others don't understand what the big issue is here.

Rovinescu wants to move airplanes - meaning our jobs - out of Air Canada and give them to some other pilots to fly who will do it cheaper. That's one issue. The other big one for me is the fact he wants to take away my pension. If you think I'm being "entitled" for not wanting those things to happen then just what the hell would you personally be willing to fight for?

They are a company and they can do pretty much what they want to increase their bottom line.

No they can't. I refer you yet again to Canadian Labour Law.

Workers have rights in this country, or at least they used to until Emperor Harper came along.

So, a company cannot be flexible at all in their business plan?

I never said or implied that in any way. I said workers have rights enshrined in the Canadian Labour Code and a company must respect those rights. Part I of that code deals with industrial relations, and I've included the preamble to it below as well as a link to the Code. Tell me if either Harper or Air Canada are honouring the Canadian Labour Code or its principles.

AC Management and AC unions have been (free) bargaining like cry babies for as long as I can remember.

Air Canada providing what is considered an essential service, it's the Government's responsibility to intervene when your conflict has an impact on the bigger picture.