Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

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Rockie
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Rockie »

777longhaul wrote:So.....has AC given up the BFOR fight?? If they are going to 65, then they are not pushing the BFOR issue?
As it stands right now there is no way for Air Canada to force retire anybody after December 15th, 2012. If they want people out at age 65 they will have to make the case for BFOR of age 65 and they haven't even tried to do that yet. They do appear to have finally abandoned their argument for age 60 though.

I don't think this is a coincidence that Air Canada is doing this now. I think they hope it lends credibility to the rest of their offer in the eyes of the government, and by circumventing the legal negotiating protocol and releasing it to the pilots directly they've inserted a controversial red herring to take our eyes off the ball. From what I've been reading on the pilot's forum that tactic seems to enjoy some success. They will also no doubt use what's going on with the contract in general to ensure they reap all the benefits of eliminating mandatory retirement while ensuring we get none of it. I haven't read anything so far to indicate our pilots have made the same leap in logic.
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TheStig
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by TheStig »

Given that the companies proposal has already been turned down and is simply being used to lower the memberships expectations, while providing a 'low water mark' for any potential arbitration. It is even worth discussing its contents? That said, it certainly provides a heads up as to what Air Canada is hoping to achieve in negotiations, and what items are on the table. Notably that Age 60 is actively being negotiated. It will be interesting, how specifically, Air Canada will be able to determine future staffing requirements through adjustments made to the collective agreement?
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accumulous
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by accumulous »

TheStig wrote:Given that the companies proposal has already been turned down and is simply being used to lower the memberships expectations, while providing a 'low water mark' for any potential arbitration. It is even worth discussing its contents? That said, it certainly provides a heads up as to what Air Canada is hoping to achieve in negotiations, and what items are on the table. Notably that Age 60 is actively being negotiated. It will be interesting, how specifically, Air Canada will be able to determine future staffing requirements through adjustments made to the collective agreement?
It sure doesn’t appear that age 60 is being negotiated anywhere. That train already hit the station at a substantial rate of knots and disgorged its passengers.

It will still take us a while to realize that, given our current state of awareness. We’ll probably realize it right about the time coming up shortly when the Company will need to know for purposes of the next Equipment Bid, how many pilots plan to continue working. That question will come from the Employer, and it will obviously be coming soon. Why? Planning.

This isn’t between AC and ACPA. It’s now a third party issue and the third party is Parliament, having enacted the end of Mandatory Retirement. ACPA can pretend it’s not there but all they’ll succeed in doing is ensuring zero benefit from zero planning and that comes as no surprise. They’ll only have the Company exactly where the Company wants them.

As for planning training issues around retirements, each individual pilot will be making the decision on when they retire, not some guy with a seniority list and a magic marker. Simply put a proviso in there that suitable notice shall be given, let’s say 6 months or a year, or perhaps attach it to 2 or 3 Equipment Bids hence. That’s likely how it will be done. It should take about a minute for that one.

As it currently stands there is absolutely no requirement whatsoever for any pilot to give notice. Each and every pilot on the seniority list could quit right now if they wanted to. It would seem then that any new retirement policy would likely apply to everybody. The end of retirement is subject to Transport Canada licensing and ICAO restrictions which presently prevent Captains from occupying PIC past 65 if you go international. Like WestJet, at 65, you slide over to the right seat and do your next ride in the right seat. There are no ICAO restrictions for F/O’s over 65.
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SilentMajority
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by SilentMajority »

If Air Canada is now admitting that there is no Bona Fide Occupational Requirement to force retire its pilots at age 60....does that mean that there never was a BFOR?

Wonder what that means for Mssrs. Vilven & Kelly who temporarily lost their reinstatement of employment through a poorly adjudicated BFOR ruling last July.

Wonder how the Craig ruling will now stand up under a judicial review?

If the BFOR argument no longer exists for Air Canada past December 15th, 2012.....then it begs the question......did one ever really exist in the first place??
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TheStig
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by TheStig »

accumulous wrote:It sure doesn’t appear that age 60 is being negotiated anywhere. That train already hit the station at a substantial rate of knots and disgorged its passengers.

It will still take us a while to realize that, given our current state of awareness. We’ll probably realize it right about the time coming up shortly when the Company will need to know for purposes of the next Equipment Bid, how many pilots plan to continue working. That question will come from the Employer, and it will obviously be coming soon. Why? Planning.

This isn’t between AC and ACPA. It’s now a third party issue and the third party is Parliament, having enacted the end of Mandatory Retirement. ACPA can pretend it’s not there but all they’ll succeed in doing is ensuring zero benefit from zero planning and that comes as no surprise. They’ll only have the Company exactly where the Company wants them.

As for planning training issues around retirements, each individual pilot will be making the decision on when they retire, not some guy with a seniority list and a magic marker. Simply put a proviso in there that suitable notice shall be given, let’s say 6 months or a year, or perhaps attach it to 2 or 3 Equipment Bids hence. That’s likely how it will be done. It should take about a minute for that one.

As it currently stands there is absolutely no requirement whatsoever for any pilot to give notice. Each and every pilot on the seniority list could quit right now if they wanted to. It would seem then that any new retirement policy would likely apply to everybody. The end of retirement is subject to Transport Canada licensing and ICAO restrictions which presently prevent Captains from occupying PIC past 65 if you go international. Like WestJet, at 65, you slide over to the right seat and do your next ride in the right seat. There are no ICAO restrictions for F/O’s over 65.
ACC I'm going to have to disagree on some of your statements. When Air Canada's pilot's fly past the age of 60, they will do so under the terms of the collective agreement, therefore the terms of their employment will be negotiated. You might not want to jump to any conclusions with respect to what those terms might be.

There are too many variables to come up with a comprehensive list, but possible solutions might include; A requirement to give 6 months notice prior to retirement (as you've alluded to) with the caveat that a pilot will not be able to begin collecting pension payments until that date. Or even forcing Captains into an FO positions at 60 in order to solve the over/under rule, this solution would provide less 'cascade' training when an over 60 pilot does decide to leave. A common 777/787 grouping alone might allow AC enough scheduling flexibility to drop the BFOR fight? I don't know what's being tabled at this time, I doubt you do either though. However, I do agree that there likely wont be another equipment bid until this is sorted as the last bid accounted for retirements up to the end of 2012.
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Raymond Hall
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Raymond Hall »

Please allow me to recap some of the facts that have been available for some time, just to give some perspective on this most recent development. Nothing new, here, but it might help to review things. Two points:

1. The mandatory retirement exemption in the Canadian Human Rights Act will not be available after December, 2012. That means that, prima facie, the mandatory retirement provision of the collective agreement is in violation of the law, subject to BFOR, and cannot be applied. Hence the need to amend the agreement.

2. Both Air Canada are still actively fighting the BFOR issue in the Court and at the Tribunal. They both have included the BFOR issue in their respective Statements of Particulars (which is an outline of the case they intend to present) for the next Tribunal hearing that is currently scheduled to proceed at the end of March, and currently involves 82 pilots, with more likely to be added before the hearing commences.

The have both filed replies to the Complainants' Application for Judicial Review of the July, 2010 Vilven-Kelly decision dismissing the complaints on the basis of BFOR. Those replies both argue that the judicial review Applications should be dismissed and the BFOR decision leading to the dismissal of the complaints and the subsequent re-termination of the employment of both pilots should be upheld.

They have both filed Applications for Judicial Reviews of the BFOR reasons in the August, 2010 Tribunal decision that found that both Air Canada and ACPA had failed to discharge their onus to establish a BFOR in the Thwaites hearing.

Pleadings on all of the judicial reviews above have not yet been completed. They will be completed within the next month, following which a hearing date will be assigned by the Court. The hearing will likely be in May, at the earliest, with a decision within four months.

Those are facts. They are not all the facts, of course, as the legal issues are quite complex, the issues are hotly contested, and the litigation is like a runaway train. But those facts should give some context to the current state of legal affairs.

Now here is some opinion.

The Federal Court should be able to clarify the law on BFOR, as it applies to the ICAO restrictions, prior to December when the repeal of the mandatory retirement exemption comes into force.

Air Canada’s proposal, as I read it, says that the collective agreement must be amended to reflect the new legal reality. No surprise. The proposal also cites

(1) the ICAO restrictions, and

(2) the need for planning,

as conditions that must be reconciled within the collective agreement. Those were and are two of the key issues still in its arsenal of legal arguments before the Court on the BFOR issue.

Citing the issues publicly does not give any indication of exactly how either or both parties, the employer and the union, will need to address the issues, or how they plan to address the issues, before or after the Federal Court renders its decision on the BFOR questions before it.
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Morry Bund
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Morry Bund »

TheStig wrote:ACC I'm going to have to disagree on some of your statements. When Air Canada's pilot's fly past the age of 60, they will do so under the terms of the collective agreement, therefore the terms of their employment will be negotiated. There are too many variables to come up with a comprehensive list, but possible solutions might include forcing Captains into an FO positions at 60 in order to solve the over/under rule, this solution would provide less 'cascade' training when an over 60 pilot does decide to leave.
Doubtful. The over/under issue is one of degree. As I understand the issue, the employer must accommodate to the point of undue hardship. At least that's what the Tribunal decisions said. Now, will one Captain over age 60 cause undue hardship? No... Two? No... Twenty? No... 200? Not unless there are about 500 F/O's over age 60. If there are no F/O's over age 60 it doesn't matter how many Captains are over age 60.

So an alternative way to solve the problem would be to say, "No F/Os over age 60 -- if you want to stay employed, you have to get promoted!" Poof! No more BFOR issues.

This whole BFOR issue is nothing more than a smokescreen to delay the return to work of those who should have never been terminated in the first place. Unfortunately, it appears to be an effective way to keep everyone, including some of the Tribunal panels, completely dumbfounded.
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accumulous
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by accumulous »

The Stig wrote:
When Air Canada's pilot's fly past the age of 60, they will do so under the terms of the collective agreement, therefore the terms of their employment will be negotiated.
What needs to be remembered is that the playing field has changed for ‘Everybody’, including ‘Anybody’ who tries to find other ways to penalize pilots over 60. You’re only penalizing yourself, however that’s our hallmark.

If a Corporation ever needed a more suppliant target, it’s an employee group engrossed in self-buggery.

Whatever bazillion foot pounds of torque and cash ‘Anybody’ sets about vaporizing next, in a vain effort to continue marginalizing pilots over 60, applies to ‘Everybody’, including ‘Anybody’ who tries it.

Our continual Modus Operandi in lieu of any kind of intelligent plan, is jerking the pistols and blowing holes through both feet at the same time. It’s gotten to the point where the Corp doesn’t even have to go for the holster. They only have to say “Boo”.

And that is precisely why we’re sitting at a table staring down the barrel of the Corporate Smarts Department, blinking like cross-eyed bats in a floodlight, trying to figure out why we’re at the Ball and having a hard time dancing with slugs through both boots.

We’ve been screwing ourselves blind for so long over an age 60 issue that the planet solved a decade ago to everybody’s advantage, like bats hanging upside down in a cave, the rest of the world waltzed right on by on the dance floor, and we never even saw it happen.

We’ve set up the perfect sting operation against ourselves. If we had channeled half that energy and funneled it into something productive we’d likely have a slim chance of amounting to something, and yet here we are still looking for ways to dork ourselves senseless.

As was mentioned a long time ago, if you plant one seniority number on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, an AC pilot will book a trip on the Titanic to get it.

Well guess what, it’s been planted.

Your move.
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TheStig
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by TheStig »

"Your move?" What?

I simply stated that there are a number of possible out comes here. When anyone posts anything on this forum which contravenes the only solution the FP60 group is hoping for they are quickly shouted down with a flurry of angry posts, I can see why so many don't even bother anymore. Doesn't make for much of a discussion, which is all this is because no one here sets the rules, negotiates contracts or delivers the verdicts. As I stated yesterday, it will be interesting to see how having pilots over 60 will be adapted into the collective agreement, that's all.
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Last edited by TheStig on Sun Jan 29, 2012 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
Rockie
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Rockie »

accumulous wrote: If we had channeled half that energy and funneled it into something productive we’d likely have a slim chance of amounting to something, and yet here we are still looking for ways to dork ourselves senseless.
Sometimes you just have to laugh as this line made me do. All the good effort recently on negotiations and creating solidarity toward a common threat is too easily derailed by a management who knows precisely which buttons to push to send us spinning off into space. On this issue we are the contestants in Monty Pythons idiot race and Air Canada has the starting gun.
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Rockie
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Rockie »

TheStig wrote: When anyone posts anything on this forum which contravenes the only solution the FP60 group is hoping for they are quickly shouted down with a flurry of angry posts, I can see why so many don't even bother anymore.
FP60 folks have been beating their heads against the wall for years trying to get you guys to manage this situation and start thinking of ways to make it work to everyone's advantage. They've even suggested ideas that capitalize on the savings the company will get as a result and return it to the pilots in several different forms that immediately improve existing compensation and preserve and improve our ability to retire even earlier if one chooses to. You guys only come up with ways to discourage people from staying beyond 60 through alternate measures which are also discriminatory. How about thinking up stuff that isn't discriminatory and see how it's received?
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the original tony
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by the original tony »

Let me ask you this?? What right now can't be swung into a discrimination?
We have a person who needs a cat to fly and a person who is allergic to cats.
Both on the same plane. Oh know it all..... His do we fix this?
It's not fair to tell one to wait, tell one not to bring a cat, tell one to not be allergic magically.
This bullshit society is trying to cater to everybody. Good luck.
This situation is the same as your god given right to occupy a seat.
Any restriction or caveat can be considered discriminatory.
Your brainless greed of fly till death do us part is funny. For them it's a right to keep earning money.
I want to advance and it's greed. I would like to get the same chances they did, and it's greed.
How would you fix it? I honestly have no idea.
But I think a guy wanting to stay around forever may have some insight.....
By the way I'm a 400 pound man, 7 feet tall with a fear of flying and need a camel to make me comfortable in a plane. But I'm deathly affraid of camels. How are you going to compensate me if I can't board your aircraft??????
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Rockie
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Rockie »

the original tony wrote:Let me ask you this?? What right now can't be swung into a discrimination?
What you and everybody else needs to be asking yourselves is; What is likely to (past 6 years), and has now (present) actually been declared discriminatory?

Govern your actions on that instead of railing at the skies over your perceived injustice.
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the original tony
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by the original tony »

So you don't know. Excellent.
Just don't touch shit. Leave it as is. And god help you if you try to
take it away from me. Got it.
Everyone else pay for my missed planning.
Standing by for new orders.

Thanks
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Rockie
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Rockie »

I'm not sure what it is you don't think I know, but here's what I do know:

1. Mandatory retirement based on age has been on the way out for many years in Canada, and now the federal government has finally caught up making it a clean sweep from coast to coast to coast.

2. Not only has the pilot group refused to look at the abundance of evidence pointing to #1 above, but even after the fact they still refuse to accept reality.

3. The Air Canada pilots have been crushed on this issue garnering absolutely none of the benefits for themselves (except for the fact they won't be discriminated against which they had nothing to do with) directly as a result of #2 above.

4. You personally will spend the rest of your career as a bitter and twisted man, at least until you turn 60 and realize that if you want to continue you can and it will be your choice, and your choice alone. Maybe then you'll look back and actually mean it when you say "thanks".
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the original tony
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by the original tony »

When I say thanks I "really" mean it.
Now, again, what was your non discriminatory solution??
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Johnny Mapleleaf
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Johnny Mapleleaf »

the original tony wrote:Let me ask you this?? What right now can't be swung into a discrimination?
This bullshit society is trying to cater to everybody. Good luck.
If I put my hand in a flame, my hand gets burnt. Fact.

If I violate the human rights law, I wind up in litigation, pay lawyers, and then pay damages. Fact.

If I do the same stupid thing over and over and over again, I pay lawyers fees, more lawyers fees and then still more lawyers fees. Then I pay damages and more damages and still more damages.

Should I be pee'd off and start crying that I live in a bullsh*t society because of my own inability to deal with reality? That's not the way I fly airplanes. That's not the way I run my life. Don't you think that it is about time that you started looking beyond your emotions and started deal with the facts? Or are you going to carry that dead weight forever?
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the original tony
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by the original tony »

So you are another who loves To spew facts. FACT.
Yet cannot give an answer either.
We all know it's a horrible thing to have to give up something.
Especially when you worked so hard to get it.....
Again, what can one do that isn't discriminatory? Atleast in the eyes of club 60?
Trust me, even a seniority list is discriminatory. Ask a lawyer. Maybe one that has more to gain than notiriaty and bragging rights. Impartiality is rare when money is on the line.
Why should I be treated differently being here less years than another? Get rid of it. But then this beautiful pyramid with an apex that can only NOW be reached by senior people is ruined.
So shut it unless someone has an actual answer.
And remember it can't have ANYTHING discriminatory in it.
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Rockie
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Rockie »

Tony

Look back on this and the countless other threads to see some of the suggestions people have had. They're there, you just haven't chosen to notice them.
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Johnny Mapleleaf
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Re: Mandatory Retirement Repealed!!!

Post by Johnny Mapleleaf »

the original tony wrote:So you are another who loves To spew facts. FACT. Yet cannot give an answer either. So shut it unless someone has an actual answer.
Not a fact. Here is my answer. It is discriminatory because the law says that is discriminatory. Make sense? It makes sense to me. Why look any further? Comprendo?
the original tony wrote:Why should I be treated differently being here less years than another?
Because the Gods in Ottawa willed it that way. So get over it. You had your chance to work with accepting the changes so as to minimize the impact, and you blew it, sitting cursing the dark. It's been said here before and it apparently needs to be said here again for those who are too thick to get it the first time, or the second time. This isn't about Air Canada pilots. It's about almost one million Canadians in the federal sector, the majority of whom had no right to any income after age 65, prior to the repeal of the mandatory retirement law.

Maybe you should go back and listen to the Parliamentary recording of our illustrious union President telling the parliamentarians that Parliament had to be mindful of the effect of repealing mandatory retirement—that it would reduce the senior pilot's pension income by a few thousand dollars (the implication being that it would lower us from the top 0.075% of the income earners in the country to the top 0.080% of income earners in the country). Incredible. And he said it with a straight face, if you can believe it.

And look at the context. He was making his speech to Parliamentarians who had oodles of constituents whose termination of employment at age 65 by reason of mandatory retirement was putting them below the poverty line because not only did they have no pension at all, they had no reasonable prospect of getting any other job. No sh*t. Get some perspective, man.
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