Seeker

The difference between a pilot and a lawyer and between a pilot and a surgeon is that the pilot's along for the ride. This is a very strong motivator. I wonder if a lawyer was going to share the same sentence as his client if there'd be more effort put in? Of course the vast majority of lawyers are fine and there are many life situations where they are indispensable so I make no blanket statements and hope if I have to make a midnight call that it gets answered. Anyway, the point of my post was that a minimum level of skill for a pilot is enough that he doesn't get killed, the minimum level of competence for a lawyer (surgeon, engineer) is that they don't get reported to their ethics board for review.

I think you're wrong here Kip. These are not unskilled minimum wage staff demanding "stuff" for free. These are pilots who have paid far more than you might realize to get where they are and want a fair wage. You might see the "entitled" when you are out and about but these guys aren't them.

Enlighten us. APLA is obviously mindful that their own members are reading and following what is disseminated publicly and AC is clearly speaking to their customers and investors but who is the target audience - the government?

Hey, good news! Oh, wait, maybe they're not serious and are just making happy noises for the public?

Click the pic below and a another page full of photos will load. Two thousand pilots at the four bases including pilots from Westjet, Transat, Jazz, Delta, United and others.

No, please don't (quietly withdraw). I value these opportunities to test my foil as I don't get many. Perhaps I came across too strongly - I enjoy the debate.

I'm not sure what union you are referring to or imagining but the "average" pilot must successfully pass multiple exams and demonstrations of skills and technical knowledge every year. The average pilot flies the airplane to the destination according to assigned flying. The average train engineer moves the trains. Perhaps you're thinking about municipal workers sleeping in their trucks behind the strip mall when they should be filling potholes? There is no ability to shirk work or under-achieve as a pilot or train engineer. Surely you are not comparing minimum wage fast food workers with pilots or rail engineers? The discussion about the value of increasing minimum wage is an interesting one but has no relevance here. I suspect you've been served the "non-pilot" talking points as pilots tend to underplay the reality, even to friends. The problem is that it's impossible to describe without coming off as if you're trying to be dramatic and solicit admiration. I only mention here because your comments seem to be in the area of "piloting is nothing special".

True. The whole idea behind a "corporation" is to be as greedy as possible - generally phrased as to "seek maximum profit for it's shareholders". Some corporations are evil. Not that I think it's a goal but they certainly are conscienceless. Yes. What else should they be motivated by? Unions seek the best deal for their members in the same way that corporations seek maximum profit. Yes, it does. Unless, of course, they are an essential service. Right now the gov and the corps want to have their cake and eat it too. Are the railways an essential service (with the associated rights and obligations) or not? If they are - binding arbitration, if they are not then their rights have been breached. They seek salaries and benefits commensurate with the cost and effort to obtain the required training and skills along with the lifestyle impacts and responsibility the career demands. In that case let's include executives that can't manage their way out of a wet paper bag. Let's include elected members who can't understand that hiring your brother-in-law's consulting firm for a sole-source, no-bid contract is an ethics violation. It's true that occasional, rare accidents find human error as an underlying cause or partially at fault. Same as when the space shuttle crashes, a train crashes, a nuclear reactor melts or a doctor makes an error. These are the sorts of comments that come from someone who has never experienced somatogravic and somatogyral Illusions. Someone who's never looked out the window at a wet runway in reduced visibility with moderate turbulence in a aircraft rapidly burning fuel and had to make a snap decision to land or go to the alternate airport. No, I'm not trying to make pilots look like movie action heroes - the point is that the job is far, far more complicated than the public realizes. I hired a lawyer recently and it's been nothing but incompetence. Many of my friends have the same story. If pilots flew aircraft like lawyers lawyer there'd be a crash every day. What risk? Your point is obviously dealing with "essential service" designated unions. The AC pilots are not an essential service and neither are/were the railways. The gov and the CIRB acted illegally in the railway matter. What will be the consequence? Nothing. They'll say, "oh, sorry, we were wrong", nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Read that carefully - they were both voting to authorize a strike - that's not the same as serving strike notice. The headline is misleading. In fact the union offered to stagger the negotiations back in May/June to prevent the simultaneous lockout or strike and the companies refused to accept it. This was because the companies knew if only one company was shutdown the chance of the gov intervening would be reduced. The companies orchestrated the shutdown. It was the companies who were holding the population hostage. They obviously decided that the 3 or 4 day shutdown with gov intervention to end it would cost less than what the employees were asking for. https://teamsters.ca/blog/2024/06/07/cn-and-cpkc-reject-offer-to-stagger-negotiations/

I also expect this. No doubt they are hoping for the same sort of government intervention.

Hah! If that's true why not make them work for minimum wage? Why not make everyone work for minimum wage? It would certainly make things cheaper for the Canadian citizen. In fact, why pay people anything at all - cheaper still.

So where is the balance between worker's rights and the company's economic interest? I totally understand the importance of the transport industry but if the company can just refuse to bargain and rely on the gov to force the resolution there is no balance. Maybe the entire transport industry should be an essential service with associated obligations on both parties?

I think the explanation is much more basic. The unions wanted to have staggered negotiations so they could leverage the losses of one company against the other and the companies wanted simultaneous negotiations so they could leverage the short but intense economic pressures against the unions. The companies obviously knew (or guessed, fortuitously) that the government would force arbitration and end it and decided the cost of a shutdown for a few days was less than the cost of giving the employees what they wanted.

Hello dagger, glad to see your participation. The unions did attempt to stagger the negotiations and this was rejected by the corporations. I believe this was done to bring the most pressure possible on the government to intervene by the corporations! It's clear they had no desire to actually negotiate believing the feds would intervene as they did. They anticipated and planned the shutdown and the CIRB order. https://teamsters.ca/blog/2024/06/07/cn-and-cpkc-reject-offer-to-stagger-negotiations/

Yes, that's what I'm saying. The arbitration comes to a new contract and that bargaining cycle is done. If the court decides the gov acted illegally, so what? They have a contract and there's nothing due to them for what they lost in the process. The only way to get a better contract is next bargaining cycle. This completely undermines the worker's rights. The only "cost" to the gov is being seen by the public as having intervened and, TBH, most people don't care, they just don't want to be inconvenienced.

So, the railway workers are forced back to work and two years from now the Supreme Court deems the gov's action illegal - what are the implications, what remedy or compensation is due? I see the AC pilots in the same situation; it goes to midnight and they're out on the street (strike or lockout) after a short period (couple of days or a week) the gov instructs the CIRB to direct them to arbitration and they go back to work. The arbitration process results in a new contract and 2 years later the Supreme Court says the whole thing was illegal. Now what? Too bad, so sad and the pilots get nothing?

Any back to work legislation would be challenged in count and defeated. That, of course, takes time and might mean the pilots must continue working in the meanwhile. I am also concerned about how the Conservatives might fall on this one. They do not have a record of supporting workers but will likely weight the impact of supporting the Libs vs causing them harm.

Lisa Raitt, who served as labour minister in the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper, said referring the dispute to the CIRB won't instantly end the work stoppage. She said the companies and the union first have to agree to binding arbitration. "You can try to get the parties to agree to binding arbitration. Maybe you can write to the CIRB and ask them to impose binding arbitration… but there's no way a minister can write a letter and say that everyone goes back to work and I'm sending you to binding arbitration," she said. "If you find a lawyer who can tell you that it's possible [for the minister to order the parties into arbitration], then I wish I had their advice 15 years ago. But as far as I'm concerned, you aren't able to do that."

You failed on this one. History changed in 2015 when the right-to-strike was found to a Constitutional Right. Anything that happened before that is irrelevant. The government's ability to intervene is greatly diminished. They have 3 options; 1) refer it to the CIRB (which is what they have done with the rail workers) The CIRB will likely reject binding arbitration based on the 2015 Supreme Court ruling. 2) Enact back-to-work legislation. This requires re-calling Parliament early and getting support from the other Parties - how likely is this? Might also cause a vote of nonconfidence and bring down the government. 3) use the notwithstanding clause. This is the nuclear option. Unlikely because of the political implications.

AC has approximately a 44% market share (domestically). Hard to make the argument it's "essential".

I'm surprised by the media coverage that seems be; "fait accompli", problem solved. Even the "experts" they have generally don't seem to understand this. I agree with comment that the government just wants to look like they did "something". Maybe this is their "out". "We referred it to the CIRB and they refused. Well, we did our best". The next few days will be interesting. I have several bets (not real bets) going with non-airline people who believe that the rail workers are just going to back to work and take whatever crumbs they can get from the CIRB. Furthermore that the AC pilots will face the same hammer and also just go back to work (if they even stopped) and take some crumbs. I think neither will happen. I think the rail workers will fight it as the Westjet AMEs did and that the AC pilots have the will to do the same if necessary.

Here are verrry unhappy passengers:

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/video/c2981492-looming-air-canada-pilots-strike?playlistId=1.7008855&__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

I would expect the voluntary uptake to be much less and any hint of "mandate" to meet fierce resistance.