Air Canada Strike
Moderators: North Shore, sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, I WAS Birddog
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Living 5500ASL
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Re: Air Canada Strike
I'm in YYZ overnighting, and saw a few of those signs but had no idea what they were about.
I hope you guys do strike. We are very close too as well. This would add a lot fuel to our fire, as we fly the same types, but for much less.
I hope you guys do strike. We are very close too as well. This would add a lot fuel to our fire, as we fly the same types, but for much less.
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
Semper Fidelis
“De inimico non loquaris male, sed cogites"-
Do not wish death for your enemy, plan it.
Semper Fidelis
“De inimico non loquaris male, sed cogites"-
Do not wish death for your enemy, plan it.
Re: Air Canada Strike
But Nark, it's the CSR that are striking not the pilots.
Re: Air Canada Strike
Ya that is what I heard too the negotiations happen in stages CSR, the ramp agents and so on...
Tom
PPL
PPL
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2.5milefinal
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Re: Air Canada Strike
I have A feeling the Harper government will have something to say about any AC strike(s) and how long it (they) will last.
...good luck to everyone
...good luck to everyone
Opinions cant be proven false.
Re: Air Canada Strike
I highly doubt the harper government will mess around too much with them. This is just the first group to threaten a strike. There will be more to come.
If the government got involved each time, then pretty soon they would look like union smashers. I don't think they're ready to be shed in that light.
Weather we like Air Canada, its employees or its management is irrelevant.
Labour disputes need to go through the freedom of uninfluenced course. That is capitalism. Natural supply and demand of the work force.
Your value in the workforce is not what you deserve. It's what you can negotiate.
If the government got involved each time, then pretty soon they would look like union smashers. I don't think they're ready to be shed in that light.
Weather we like Air Canada, its employees or its management is irrelevant.
Labour disputes need to go through the freedom of uninfluenced course. That is capitalism. Natural supply and demand of the work force.
Your value in the workforce is not what you deserve. It's what you can negotiate.
Re: Air Canada Strike
Minister "Ratt" also indicated that she wouldn't mess with the ALPA/Jazz negots last year.
Then just under a year ago, this was announced in The House:
http://openparliament.ca/hansards/2284/273/
Then just under a year ago, this was announced in The House:
http://openparliament.ca/hansards/2284/273/
Re: Air Canada Strike
This is the email they're sending out to passengers. Sounds like even if they do strike it won't effect flights, weirdly.At Air Canada, in the event of a strike, we are fully committed to taking care of our customers.
Passenger,
We are committed to averting a strike and are hard at work to reach a settlement with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), the union representing Air Canada's call centre and airport customer service agents in Canada.
What will happen if a strike occurs?
Rest assured that we will continue to operate our regular schedule. Existing bookings will be honoured and future bookings welcomed. We are also implementing a contingency service plan to minimize impact to our customers in the event of a strike.
Use our self-service tools
Our call centres are currently experiencing call volumes that are higher than normal. To avoid unnecessary wait time, please visit aircanada.com or contact your travel agent, to manage or book your flights.
We strongly encourage you to check-in within 24 hours of flight departure, online at aircanada.com or on a mobile device at mobile.aircanada.com
Flight updates are also available at aircanada.com
We look forward to welcoming you on board. It's business as usual, while we work things out on the ground.
For up-to-date information visit aircanada.com.
Sincerely,
Air Canada
Re: Air Canada Strike
http://www.caw2002tca.ca/NewsRoom/page11061001.aspx
The committee continues to work to put in clear terms that in this round of bargaining, we are determined to make progress. Our proposals recognize that productivity has increased over 75 percent since 2002. The last proposal from the corporation fell significantly short of the goals of the bargaining committee in all areas. This corporation still has the following issues on the bargaining table:
Separate/new classifications in the airports. This includes Special Services Agents handling wheelchairs, kiosks and lines.
The corporation is demanding limiting the ability to transfer between call centres and airports.
Small bases
Elimination of the Retirement Phase-in Program.
On the pension formula, change definition of final average earnings from 36 months to 60 months.
Reduce the pension formula to 1.3%/2% of earnings for all years of service (the current formula is 1.9%/2%).
Delay unreduced early retirement from age 55 and 80 points to age 60 and 90 points.
Delay the option for early retirement from 25 years of service or 80 points to 30 years of service or 90 points.
Reduction in joint and survivor benefit (upon member's death).
Wages and benefits.
Closure of the Defined Benefit Pension to new hires and set up a minimal defined contribution pension plan.
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Living 5500ASL
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Re: Air Canada Strike
I don't see how AC thinks they can maintain service with a strike. my experience in yyc is that even a small dusting of snow, in Calgary, in the winter, and the whole place goes to crap. Not having sales people and gate agents no way that place functions properly.
Re: Air Canada Strike
Their contingency plan involves managers and office staff checking in and working gates. The same managers that disappear into their offices when things start to fall apart.Cobra64 wrote:I don't see how AC thinks they can maintain service with a strike. my experience in yyc is that even a small dusting of snow, in Calgary, in the winter, and the whole place goes to crap. Not having sales people and gate agents no way that place functions properly.
Maybe now managers will find out what the employees actually go through in a day and have a little more respect for them!!!!
Re: Air Canada Strike
Stormy Skies for Canada's Middle Class
First Posted: Jun 11 2011 11:14 AM
The possible strike at Air Canada reflects a larger tension in our economy.
The Canadian middle class is in crisis. Each year, its share of our national income shrinks, relative to that of the richest few. Recent reports show Canada’s wealthiest one per cent accounted for 32 per cent of all income growth between 1997 and 2007 – the most in recorded history. Thanks to skyrocketing executive compensation levels and an aggressive attack on well-paid, family-supporting jobs, the gap between the rich and the rest of us grows ever wider.
Latest news: Air Canada Union Serves Strike Notice
Nothing epitomizes this situation more than the recent history of Air Canada. In the last decade, Canada's national carrier has suffered unprecedented financial turbulence, including run-ins with bankruptcy protection. According to the Canadian Auto Workers’ internal research, over the same period Air Canada's CEO at the time, Robert Milton, pocketed $86 million – while thousands of front-line employees were forced to take cuts, to the tune of about $10,000 per year, including an erosion of real wages, lost vacation, paid lunch breaks and other benefits.
Air Canada workers made major sacrifices. The company plowed ahead with plans to do more with less. Work intensified and productivity skyrocketed. Measured in seat miles delivered per employee, labour productivity at Air Canada jumped 75 per cent. Yet many who had earned a good (albeit modest) salary saw their quality of life and working conditions decline.
This storyline has played out in too many workplaces across Canada. “Good” jobs are on the wane, in all sectors – whether in factories, service shops, office buildings, or among the professional classes. Many have come to accept the logic that jobs in the “new economy” are inherently insecure. Pension plans exist only in fairy tales, and personal sacrifice has become the new norm. We accept the mantra that the next generation of workers will be worse off, and assume they simply aren’t in a position to demand better.
This attitude must change – for everyone’s benefit. The squeezing out of Canada’s middle class has major implications for our collective prosperity. Middle-class incomes drive economic growth, pay for public services, support healthy families, and build communities. Society cannot subsist on crumbs left over by the rich. Workers cannot accept the logic that relentless cuts and constant sacrifice will bring better days ahead.
Air Canada employees have already drawn a line in the sand during their current contract talks. They’ve resolved to make up ground on lost wages. They’ve rejected a program of two-tiering, which would make second-class workers of future generations. And in a recent show of solidarity, the CAW, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (three unions representing the lion’s share of Air Canada employees) rejected a company proposal to undercut and eventually eliminate the current defined benefit pension plan. By saying “no” to these demands, Air Canada employees are facing down the corporate-led riptide that’s pushing Canada’s middle class to the brink.
With the company’s return to profitability in 2010 and a brighter future on the horizon, Air Canada’s demands for more cuts, fewer full-time jobs, and outsourcing appear baseless. It’s made worse by CEO Calin Rovinescu’s hefty 76 per cent pay hike that landed him $4.55 million in compensation last year, a defined benefit pension that would pay him $351,000 per year at age 65, and a $5 million retention bonus he would be paid just for staying on the job until March 2012. His insistence that workers accept less reeks of hypocrisy.
Not surprisingly, the frustration and anger among Air Canada employees is reaching a breaking point. Demonstrations have been taking place in communities across Canada, with impressive turnouts. CAW members recently voted 98 per cent in favour of strike action, as a last resort. They know that what’s at stake in these negotiations goes far beyond their own self-interest.
Air Canada is recognized as a world-class carrier and has received dozens of awards for quality service, largely because of its hard-working employees. It’s time they receive their fair share.
The Air Canada battle is a principled fight about fairness and justice. It’s about reclaiming workers’ rights to good jobs, as well as our collective ability to demand better from employers and government. It’s about closing that ever-widening wealth gap and strengthening the middle class, for all Canadians.
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/558 ... ddle-class
First Posted: Jun 11 2011 11:14 AM
The possible strike at Air Canada reflects a larger tension in our economy.
The Canadian middle class is in crisis. Each year, its share of our national income shrinks, relative to that of the richest few. Recent reports show Canada’s wealthiest one per cent accounted for 32 per cent of all income growth between 1997 and 2007 – the most in recorded history. Thanks to skyrocketing executive compensation levels and an aggressive attack on well-paid, family-supporting jobs, the gap between the rich and the rest of us grows ever wider.
Latest news: Air Canada Union Serves Strike Notice
Nothing epitomizes this situation more than the recent history of Air Canada. In the last decade, Canada's national carrier has suffered unprecedented financial turbulence, including run-ins with bankruptcy protection. According to the Canadian Auto Workers’ internal research, over the same period Air Canada's CEO at the time, Robert Milton, pocketed $86 million – while thousands of front-line employees were forced to take cuts, to the tune of about $10,000 per year, including an erosion of real wages, lost vacation, paid lunch breaks and other benefits.
Air Canada workers made major sacrifices. The company plowed ahead with plans to do more with less. Work intensified and productivity skyrocketed. Measured in seat miles delivered per employee, labour productivity at Air Canada jumped 75 per cent. Yet many who had earned a good (albeit modest) salary saw their quality of life and working conditions decline.
This storyline has played out in too many workplaces across Canada. “Good” jobs are on the wane, in all sectors – whether in factories, service shops, office buildings, or among the professional classes. Many have come to accept the logic that jobs in the “new economy” are inherently insecure. Pension plans exist only in fairy tales, and personal sacrifice has become the new norm. We accept the mantra that the next generation of workers will be worse off, and assume they simply aren’t in a position to demand better.
This attitude must change – for everyone’s benefit. The squeezing out of Canada’s middle class has major implications for our collective prosperity. Middle-class incomes drive economic growth, pay for public services, support healthy families, and build communities. Society cannot subsist on crumbs left over by the rich. Workers cannot accept the logic that relentless cuts and constant sacrifice will bring better days ahead.
Air Canada employees have already drawn a line in the sand during their current contract talks. They’ve resolved to make up ground on lost wages. They’ve rejected a program of two-tiering, which would make second-class workers of future generations. And in a recent show of solidarity, the CAW, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (three unions representing the lion’s share of Air Canada employees) rejected a company proposal to undercut and eventually eliminate the current defined benefit pension plan. By saying “no” to these demands, Air Canada employees are facing down the corporate-led riptide that’s pushing Canada’s middle class to the brink.
With the company’s return to profitability in 2010 and a brighter future on the horizon, Air Canada’s demands for more cuts, fewer full-time jobs, and outsourcing appear baseless. It’s made worse by CEO Calin Rovinescu’s hefty 76 per cent pay hike that landed him $4.55 million in compensation last year, a defined benefit pension that would pay him $351,000 per year at age 65, and a $5 million retention bonus he would be paid just for staying on the job until March 2012. His insistence that workers accept less reeks of hypocrisy.
Not surprisingly, the frustration and anger among Air Canada employees is reaching a breaking point. Demonstrations have been taking place in communities across Canada, with impressive turnouts. CAW members recently voted 98 per cent in favour of strike action, as a last resort. They know that what’s at stake in these negotiations goes far beyond their own self-interest.
Air Canada is recognized as a world-class carrier and has received dozens of awards for quality service, largely because of its hard-working employees. It’s time they receive their fair share.
The Air Canada battle is a principled fight about fairness and justice. It’s about reclaiming workers’ rights to good jobs, as well as our collective ability to demand better from employers and government. It’s about closing that ever-widening wealth gap and strengthening the middle class, for all Canadians.
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/558 ... ddle-class
Re: Air Canada Strike
A good article Mig29, even if it only talks about one side of the argument.
Unfortunately no amount of striking alone is going to make any difference. The basic culture of the people at the top of most corporations - trying to suck as much wealth as possible out of everyone and everything else - is not going to change no matter what. It doesn't matter to them how much damage their policies do to the company, or even whether the company survives or not.
The only solution is for the shareholders who aren't part of the pigs in the trough to find a way to kick the entire pack of them out and replace them, somehow, with executives who are competent but just as importantly who have some goal other than acquiring as much wealth as possible at the expense of everything else.
This has to be done in the majority of companies in Canada before things will actually start to change.
Unfortunately no amount of striking alone is going to make any difference. The basic culture of the people at the top of most corporations - trying to suck as much wealth as possible out of everyone and everything else - is not going to change no matter what. It doesn't matter to them how much damage their policies do to the company, or even whether the company survives or not.
The only solution is for the shareholders who aren't part of the pigs in the trough to find a way to kick the entire pack of them out and replace them, somehow, with executives who are competent but just as importantly who have some goal other than acquiring as much wealth as possible at the expense of everything else.
This has to be done in the majority of companies in Canada before things will actually start to change.
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jumperdumper
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Re: Air Canada Strike
Can anyone report how long the delays are getting into the employee parking lot at YYZ?
When your life flashes before your eyes, will it be interesting?
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2.5milefinal
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Mostly Harmless
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Re: Air Canada Strike
Psychopaths rule the corporate world these days. http://www.bankrate.com/bos/news/advice/20050414a1.aspahramin wrote: Unfortunately no amount of striking alone is going to make any difference. The basic culture of the people at the top of most corporations - trying to suck as much wealth as possible out of everyone and everything else - is not going to change no matter what. It doesn't matter to them how much damage their policies do to the company, or even whether the company survives or not.
The only solution is for the shareholders who aren't part of the pigs in the trough to find a way to kick the entire pack of them out and replace them, somehow, with executives who are competent but just as importantly who have some goal other than acquiring as much wealth as possible at the expense of everything else.
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Dilbert Pickles
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Re: Air Canada Strike
Shame on everyone in this messed up company,
I have zero respect for the whole group!
Watching the upper management of AC in the last decade makes me sick. Not to mention the pilot group excepting the sick poverty pay level for new hires, but I guess that's another topic.....
During conversation buying my first new car a few years ago, the salesman asked my profession and I replied with being a pilot for the red and white. The conversation grew- He explained that he was a gate agent in YYZ for AC. I asked how he could find the time to fill both full time positions? His explanation blew me away! He explained since he was so senior, that he could sell his shifts off to juniors and still bring home a full time wage. Plus selling cars, full time at this dealership....
That place is as corrupt as they come! They should be arrested (CEO's as well) disturbing traffic flow into the GTAA parking....
I have zero respect for the whole group!
Watching the upper management of AC in the last decade makes me sick. Not to mention the pilot group excepting the sick poverty pay level for new hires, but I guess that's another topic.....
During conversation buying my first new car a few years ago, the salesman asked my profession and I replied with being a pilot for the red and white. The conversation grew- He explained that he was a gate agent in YYZ for AC. I asked how he could find the time to fill both full time positions? His explanation blew me away! He explained since he was so senior, that he could sell his shifts off to juniors and still bring home a full time wage. Plus selling cars, full time at this dealership....
That place is as corrupt as they come! They should be arrested (CEO's as well) disturbing traffic flow into the GTAA parking....
