Turbofan

The issue is that this is a first contract for WJ maintenance. The rules are different on a first CBA and either party can request arbitration. WestJet did the same thing to their pilots on CBA 1. Subsequent negotiations don’t have this. It’s good to see the CIRB being as hands off as possible. However I doubt the possibility of later intervention is completely eliminated, which might explain the differences in messaging. Good luck!

No. She said parking aircraft because you don’t have enough pilots leads to a supply and demand issue that will eventually drive up airfare. Both WestJet and Air Canada have been pulling out of markets for the same reason. She said pilots may leave AC if wages don’t become competitive. Remember these are sound bites. Corporate Captains in Canada make 250-300k now. I know a few who will go back to corporate if wages aren’t rectified. Working up north pays really well now. Like really well. Medivac? The pay is crazy compared to when I was young. There are options other than the US. Big picture. If this profession isn’t made attractive to 16-18 year olds the industry in Canada is in trouble. How do you make a 150k investment attractive to an 18 year old? Go from there. The pilot shortage is actually an industry led issue. It’s not that people don’t want to be in the profession. It’s that for the last decade or two it doesn’t make financial sense. It’s now catching up.

You are being too kind to ACPA.

Went straight to midnight or just shy. At one point the WJ pilots were walking out. The labour minister was never In the actual room. If he said anything to anyone it wasn’t the pilots. He had no legislation in hand. That strike was on if the WJ pilots had decided on it. Your belief of impending government intervention seems to me to be Harper PTSD. That was a joke, but you get what I mean.

Again. AC pre bankruptcy wages inflation adjusted to today are similar to US carrier wages in CDN today. Compare to the US or compare to pre bankruptcy? Very similar.

The WJ pilots settled for what the data said the WJ pilots wanted at the 80th percentile. It is very hard to exceed an 85 year legacy carrier. Yet they did by a very good margin. The minister of labour was in attendance at the WJ deadline. That is normal ops for the Labour minister in a high profile dispute. He never once did anything to tip the scales in any direction. He only monitored. That is straight from the people involved. Your suggestion that something else was potentially a foot is misleading. It is not possible to have a 30 minute strike. Legislation takes days to become law. No legislation at the deadline and that guarantees days of striking even if the government reacted immediately following work stoppage. You either have legislation in hand in advance like Harper did and completely prevent the strike in the first place. Completely tipping the scale in favour of the employer. Now unconstitutional. Or you accept that a strike can happen and would likely be at minimum a week once it starts. Air Canada pilots with DB pensions represent less than half the group. Age 65 has it over funded. It’s currently cheaper than the DC.

It was a trick question. Air Canada pilot wages from 2002, inflation adjusted to today, are very similar to US wages today. Getting our bankruptcy and FOS losses back is the same as comparing to the US. The two statements, although not exactly the same, are very similar. They are simply two ways of saying basically the same thing. This makes sense since back in 2002 wages were also similar. To suggest that Air Canada pilots must compare to other airlines in Canada means you believe the cuts over the last 20 years are permanent. You are taking the same stance as Air Canada management. Canadian pilot value has declined over the last 20 years and is permanent. That stance, unless changed, will lead to conflict in September. It's not an if.

I have never flown floats into a busy city centre. Does the fact that this is a control zone with a tower and specified area for takeoff and landing have any impact on right of way?

Forget comparing to the US or the fact that AC pilots are some of the lowest paid legacy pilots in the world now. It’s not just us compared to the US. Europe is the same. Even Porter pays their E-190 Captains about 25% more than AC’s A220 Captains. Forget all that. How about this one question. Do you think Air Canada pilots are worth 30-40% less than 20 years ago? If so why? We are talking very large cumulative losses this group has experienced. It would take a 45-65% raise to recoup that 30-40% loss. That kind of correction in my mind only comes with the leverage of strike. It doesn’t get handed back without a fight.

I think it is safe to say we already know what the Government of Canada thinks. They have actually been quite clear and consistent. Probably about two weeks into a strike before the Liberals start talking about intervention. Even then the CIRB intervention they chose with the YVR port strike is slow moving. There are no quick government fixes for Air Canada this time around. The CIRB has also been very clear since Harper’s “Essential to the economy” gambit. Essential service to the labor board is security, life or limb. Nothing else. More government intervention, like we saw a decade ago to keep Canadian pilot wages suppressed, will only result in less and less pilot supply. How many people are willing to spend $150K to get a $30k job? Then in their 30’s endure 4 years of flat pay with AC starting at 60K? It makes no sense. This was the same issue in the US. As soon as they started paying flight schools became flooded again. There shortage is self correcting. The right to strike is now a constitutional right because of the actions of political leaders such as Harper. The government today or in the future can not intervene in the way the Harper government did. It is why Doug Ford resorted to the notwithstanding clause but then backed off. As for Poilievre. His future government will be saddled with a Liberal supermajority in the senate. He won’t be able to act like Harper either. He may try to intervene sooner than the Liberals but he can’t stop a strike from starting and he will have more trouble passing legislation.

It looks to me that the Beaver driver didn’t see the boat. From the left seat and nose high. Boat lower right.

I understand your point and it certainly has validity. However in this case I don’t think that is what is happening. The company is trying to hold onto what they see as an entitlement to a Canadian pilot discount. It has been so long since bankruptcy and FOS they view our wages as the Canadian norm. You can tell just how out of touch senior management is even at this point in negotiations by the comments they make. A simple exercise like taking our 2002 wages and inflation adjusting them forward to today is met with confusion on their part. They have not been listening at all or even entertaining the idea that the pilot group wants a post bankruptcy recover contract. Its obvious. They honestly believed we would negotiate from “Canadian wages” almost a full year into negotiations. They were actually shocked we took it as an insult that ended mediation. Remember almost all of AC management and BOD is new since 2014, never mind 2003. They are in a completely different head space than the pilots. They actually believe the disparity between Canadian and US pilot wages we see today is historically normal. But it’s not. The divergence started less than a decade ago. On the other side of the table they are facing ALPA negotiators looking to achieve their first CCAA recovery contract. We gave three times to help this company survive. 1) CCAA 2) Pension Crisis 3) FOS. Then we locked all these losses in for 10 years to stabilize the company. One side viewing substandard Canadian pilot wages as the norm and the other side looking at its first opportunity to recover from the events of the last 20 years. The head space so far apart I don’t see this going anywhere but 23:55 sometime in September or an actual strike. I see this starting to get quite acrimonious very shortly. And not for theatre either.

And for clarity the pilots didn’t give strike notice in 2011. What happened was theatre. The company locked us out simultaneously with the IAMAW. Then Harper passed company leaning FOS legislation and told the public he was stopping a strike. The last time the pilots went on strike was 1998. It was two weeks and there was no legislation.

Dagger, We made slightly less than US carriers pre bankruptcy but it was similar to their pay. We gave in CCAA. The airline almost failed again in 2009. We gave again on the pension front. In 2011 government imposed FOS arbitration foisted more losses on the group. Then in 2014 we locked all those losses in for 10 years to get legs back under the company. It took until 2018, 15 years after CCAA, for Air Canada pilots to make the same wages they made in 2003. Those are straight numbers. No inflation factored in. Today Air Canada pilots make roughly 40% less than they did in 2002 after factoring in inflation and half of what US pilots make. US pilots have only recently fully recovered from their bankruptcy protections after 911. 20 years out Air Canada pilots are now some of the lowest paid legacy carrier pilots in the world and have still not had a post bankruptcy recovery contract. This is the problem. It has been so long since 2003 now that Air Canada management thinks these suppressed wages are simply a “Canadian” thing. Canadian pilots don’t make the same as other pilots. They never have. Right? Well at least as long as they can remember. Watch Air Canada’s messaging moving forward. It will all be about “Canadian”. We offered them a deal that makes our pilots the highest paid in Canada. We compete in Canada. It will be Canada. Canada. Canada. This “you’re just a Canadian” was seen at WestJet as well. This pilot group is getting angrier and angrier. The latest “you’re just a Canadian” offer didn’t go over well. It ended mediation. Yet from a “Canadian” perspective, I have no doubt Air Canada would call it very competitive. But even then Porter pays their EMJ top tier CA more than an AC 787 CA. The difference between the two parties as a result is massive. Remember if you have fallen 40% behind you need a 65% increase to get back to even. That’s even. Not a raise. My guess is that if Air Canada refuses to at least restore the bankruptcy losses, there will be a very acrimonious strike. But you are right. To fully recover from CCAA it will have to go to the wire. Those types of increases only come from the threat of shutdown

Unlikely. The right to strike is now a constitutional right because of all the Harper government interference and the legal battles that followed. Remember it wasn’t just us he picked on. Rail, Ports and Air Canada. Im not suggesting we could strike indefinitely, however there are no quick government fixes for Air Canada this time. The proper way to do it is to refer it to the CIRB once the government believes the differences are irreconcilable. The Liberals started that talk about two weeks into the YVR port strike. But even that takes time to play out. If you believe the Liberal government will interfere before or quickly you haven’t been paying attention.