Ottawa to order striking Air Canada workers back to

The federal government will introduce legislation to order striking Air Canada employees back to work as the labour dispute is harming the economy, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday.

“I'm pleased that tonight the minister of labour will put a notice on the order paper a bill to deal with the Air Canada interruption of service,” Flaherty told reporters.

He said that would mean back-to-work legislation, according to Reuters news agency and Canadian Press.

The announcement comes on the heels of striking Air Canada workers suggesting things could get a whole lot worse at the country’s nine largest airports.

Things were relatively calm Tuesday morning, but as one striking worker said: “It looks good right now. Is it going to stay this way? No.”

“We’re on Tuesday morning, it’s probably the slowest morning of the week,” Dawn Moreau, an Air Canada customer service agent for 34 years, told The Canadian Press. “You get into your afternoon shifts, you get into your evening shifts, you get into snowball effects down the line.”

But so far any problems have failed to materialize.

Only a handful of flights were delayed Tuesday morning with an early crush at self-serve kiosks cleared before 7:45 a.m. as Air Canada responded to a strike by 3,800 customer service workers.

The trend continued throughout the afternoon. Lineups were short and moving quickly.

Sixteen flights were delayed throughout the afternoon, though Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said that is normal for this time of year.

He added that none of the day’s flight cancellations could be attributed to the strike.

Fitzpatrick said there would be another surge of passengers in the evening but given the successful handling of the morning rush, he didn't expect major delays.

Passengers are heeding the airline's advice, arriving early with carry-on baggage and boarding passes printed at home, he said.

Air Canada has hired replacement workers from Garda World Security to replace striking workers by helping passengers at kiosks, Garda confirmed to the Star.

The Garda workers at various airports are in addition to the regular Garda screening officers who work for and wear the uniform of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

Inside Terminal 1, managers pitched in to help passengers check in and get boarding passes for flights.

What you need to know about the strike.

Air Canada managers, wearing the airline uniform, were working at check-in counters.

Air Canada also hired uniformed guards from OBN Security and Investigative Consultants to provide extra security during the strike at Pearson and Ottawa airports, OBN confirmed to the Star.

The workers hired for the strike were only providing security and helping passengers at kiosks, Air Canada spokesman Fitzpatrick said.

Hearing there might be delays, Lauren Kennedy-Smith showed up more than two hours early for her flight to Ottawa.

She encountered no delays and said that aside from a leaflet stuffed in her hand on the way in, little else about the experience was different.

If fact, she said, management was handling check-in so well, “it’s almost better.”

Still, she said she supports the striking employees.

“I think it’s appalling they can’t come to an agreement,” she said. “Their concerns are very reasonable.”

Meanwhile, Air Canada’s 7,000 flight attendants reported for work but did not perform any duties normally covered by striking co-workers, their union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said in a release.

Air Canada flight attendants are in their own “difficult round of bargaining,” said CUPE president Paul Moist, and will be in a legal strike position in August.

Outside Pearson International Airport dozens and dozens of pickets marched and chanted, carrying a giant banner that read “Corporate Greed Hurts Everyone.”

Strikers cheered whenever an airport limousine driver or bus driver honked in support.

Hundreds of striking Air Canada employees had marched from a hotel staging area to a huge parking lot for airport employees and passengers using the long-term parking shuttle train to the terminals at around 5:30 a.m.

“Let the party begin,” shouted one woman carrying a placard as pickets blocked traffic and headed to the train for the short ride to Terminal 1.

Some strikers stayed behind at the parking lot to delay Air Canada workers, a union spokesman said.

“We’ll be looking for Air Canada uniforms,” he said. “We don’t want to delay passengers going to their flights.”

The tactic caused a long backup approaching the lot.

As to the wisdom of the walkout, some industry analysts are suggesting that the strike won’t be long or have the desired impact.

“I don’t think it is going to be a long-duration strike. The CAW doesn’t have the leverage they had 15 years ago, before the advent of self-service booking and check-in,” independent airline analyst Robert Kokonis told Reuters.

The bargaining team for the union remained at the Sheraton Centre in downtown Toronto overnight and was scheduled to meet this morning to decide its next steps.

Negotiators for the airline were also at the hotel and available to meet.

The unionized customer service workers walked off the job early Tuesday morning after marathon talks failed to break an impasse over wages and pensions.

Just after midnight, a grim looking Canadian Auto Workers president Ken Lewenza told reporters that they couldn’t reach a deal.

“We will keep pushing the employer to get back to the bargaining table,” he said.

The decision to strike was unanimous, Lewenza said.

“It is unfortunate that the CAW chose to put ideology ahead of their members’ interest,” said airline spokesman Fitzpatrick.

The biggest impasse was over wages and pensions, including a proposal to move new hires to a defined contribution plan from a defined benefit plan, which has a guaranteed payout.

The CAW wants to see a wage increase to make up for previous cuts and freezes, which, when inflation is factored in, it says has translated into a real drop of 10 per cent over the past decade.

The union points out that top executives received lucrative compensation packages, including president and CEO Calin Rovinescu, whose total compensation last year was $4.5 million, up from $2.6 million in 2009.

By mid-afternoon the rally calls of the striking workers grew so loud at time they echoed through the terminal. “Rovinescu, shame on you,” the pickets chanted.

Meanwhile, Air Canada has advised travellers to check in online up to 24 hours in advance, arrive at the terminal earlier than usual and avoid checking luggage if possible.

“All tickets will be honoured,” chief operating officer Duncan Dee said in a video released as the strike started early Tuesday. “We advise strongly against checking in baggage.”

Passengers who do have more than carry-on luggage will have to use the self-service kiosks for tagging, he said.

Some passengers would not be allowed to fly during the strike, the airline advised on its website: unaccompanied children, passengers with pets in most cases, peace officers with guns and passengers with dangerous goods in checked luggage.

Those passengers could receive a re-booking or refund, the airline said.

Traveller Charlene Hall said her check-in was the fastest she’d ever had at Pearson.

“I got my boarding pass online and got my bag tagged within five minutes,” said Hall, who was returning to Kamloops, B.C., from a business trip to Toronto.

“It was very quick,” she said, echoing the experience of several others around 8 a.m.

By 11:30 a.m., the morning rush had cleared and there were no lineups at automated kiosks in Terminal 1.

Air Canada operates 1,300 flights from Pearson daily and about 60 had been consolidated, said Fitzpatrick. The 10:10 a.m. to Ottawa, 10:20 a.m. to Sudbury and 3 p.m. to Raleigh, N.C., for example, were cancelled.

“Our contingency plan is working quite well. People are flowing through the airport. There are some lineups, but it’s all quite manageable.”

It was a similar story at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport Tuesday morning.

As striking workers picketed outside, passengers experienced few problems inside the terminal.

“There has been no impact on operations,” said airport spokeswoman Stephanie Lepage, adding there has been no slowdown of flights.

There have been some delays but Lepage emphasized that there are not more than usual. “There are always delays,” she said. “We can’t say it’s related to the strike.”

The morning also got off to a smooth start at Ottawa International Airport but officials were expecting delays as the day went on.

“We have an excellent start-up this morning. Everything went really smoothly, no delays or cancellations,” airport spokeswoman Krista Kealey said.

“We’re starting to see some delays rippling through the system because we’re being fed by other airports that are affected,” she said.

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Air Canada flights from downtown Billy Bishop Airport, operated by Sky Regional Airlines Inc., were unaffected by the strike.

Porter Airlines said it has seen a slight increase in last-minute bookings.

At WestJet Airlines, the company said plenty of seats were available although it had made no contingency plans for an Air Canada strike.

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