Air Canada says it has a contingency plan in place that would see non-unionized employees fill in for its striking workers if the airline cannot reach a new labour pact with its sales and service agents by their strike deadline at midnight Monday.
The country’s largest carrier said it intends to continue to offer a full-schedule in the event of a strike. But it also warned its customers to anticipate long line-ups Tuesday if there is a strike, and urged them to check in for their flights ahead of time online.
Staff will also be on hand at airports across the country to assist with self-serve check-in and baggage tagging, the company said. Updates will also be available online.
“We certainly recognize that this potential disruption is a cause for concern to our customers,” said Susan Welscheid, Air Canada senior vice president of customer service, in a statement posted on the airline’s website.
“We remain focused, however, on reaching a settlement and, in any event, to minimizing any inconvenience to your travel plans,” she added.
But the possibility of a labour disruption remains a serious threat as the airline enters its busy summer season.
While talks continued throughout the weekend, the tone of the discussions soured after management distributed a series of documents to its employees detailing the pension proposal and essentially its bargaining position, union officials said.
This riled Canadian Auto Workers leadership, which represents the 3,800 affected sales and service agents at the airline.
“There is no question that this has set a different tone at the bargaining table,” said Ken Lewenza, CAW president, in a tersely worded letter to the membership. “The message for those who designed and approved these documents is clear; go straight to hell!” he said.
Jamie Ross, CAW Local 2002 president, said there has been some progress, but that pension changes are a non-starter for her.
“We’re a little closer, but the pension concessions remain on the table,” she said Sunday.
The parties remain apart on several key issues, including managements wishes to move new hires into a defined contribution pension plan, and to reduce the benefits paid out to existing employees by up to 40% for new retirees, Ms. Ross said.
At the end of 2010, Air Canada had a roughly $2.1-billion pension solvency shortfall.
But the CAW Local 2002 has balked at the further changes to the pension scheme and benefits.
The union’s leadership served a 72-hour strike notice on Friday that could see them walk off the job at 11:59 p.m. Monday evening.
The strike would impact major airports in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and St. John’s.
Federal Labour Minister, Lisa Raitt, said she was taking the matter “very seriously.”
“I am concerned about the potential impact of a work stoppage on Canadians and on Canada’s economic recovery,” she said in a statement. “We are committed to supporting unions and employers, while advancing stable labour relations. I remind the parties that the best solution in any dispute is one that the parties reach themselves.”
Air Canada must negotiate new labour pacts with all of its unions this year, and has already faced one tentative agreement being rejected by the Air Canada Pilots Association. That deal failed in part because it contained a plan to move new hires into a different pension scheme, but also its plans to launch a new low-cost carrier.
The pilots opposition to the agreement was so strong that several of ACPA leadership were also voted out. Last week, ACPA elected a new master executive chairman, Capt. Gary Tarves, who will meet with the unions leadership this week before returning to the bargaining table in the weeks ahead.
The clock is also ticking on a set of negotiations with the Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents 6,800 flight attendants at the airline and applied for a conciliator to be brought in to help facilitate those talks.
Taking into consideration that the conciliatory process can take up to 60 days to complete, it would be late August or early September before the flight attendants could have a similar labour disruption.
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