Kip Powick Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 IAMAW MEMBERSHIP ILLEGAL WALK-OUT – TORONTO AIRPORT Yesterday, our Aircraft Services employees at Pearson Airport staged a four-hour illegal walk-out. With our Toronto operations halted, the impact on our customers was significant. Customers on some arriving aircraft were detained onboard for up to a few hours prior to being deplaned, and most domestic and transborder flights arriving and departing Toronto were cancelled for the balance of the day. We are back to a full operation at Toronto this morning. This illegal job action was in response to an investigation which revealed that some aircraft services employees were fraudulently abusing the time and attendance system by swiping out other employees while others were violating established company policies regarding time and attendance. During the course of the investigation, it was also determined that this fraudulent activity was likely condoned by some of our management personnel. This institutionalized form of corrupt conduct cannot be tolerated. An agreement was reached to resolve the issue with local IAMAW representatives whereby the union and the company agreed that any time transgression in the future will result in immediate termination. This agreement will enable a fresh start, where such behaviour by ANY employee from this point forward is grounds for dismissal. Most importantly, it also allowed us to minimize escalating actions that negatively impact our customers and will improve staffing levels at Toronto resulting in enhanced service levels. “The action taken by this group of employees to achieve their goals cannot be condoned. Over the past 18 months, we have worked hard at winning back customers and it’s important that we not lose the momentum we’ve built,” said Montie Brewer, President and CEO of Air Canada. It is unfortunate that many of you, particularly those working the front lines yesterday, were impacted by the actions of this group of fellow employees. Clearly, this activity demonstrates the requirement to evolve the way we deal with each other as employees. Hopefully this event provides us with the opportunity to drive forward the process of change towards an environment based on trust and respect for each other. “I’d like to thank those of you who worked hard under very difficult circumstances to take care of our customers yesterday – you know first-hand what it takes to maintain the loyalty of our customers and how each and every one of us has to do their part,” said Montie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manwest Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I saw this posted on flyertalk: http://www.ll2323iamaw.org/2323_bulletins/...n_july15_04.htm hhmm.............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N8 Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 This is Bull. Two wrongs do not make a right. First cheating the system, then when they are caught and are about to be punished they take a tantrum. Now, because of an illegal strike, the wrong doers aren't even going to be punished for their first crime! I will never look at these people the same way again. Individuals may be great people, but as a group they are all children to me now, and from now on I will treat them in such a way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky High Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I can just imgaine what spin the media is going to put on this. "AC won't discipline wildcat strikers who inconvenienced thousands of travellers." Consumers have a pretty good memory when it comes to bad experiences. I'm sure incident will color some people memory in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sambucca Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I am surprised at the outrage that 99% of you are showing at AC's handling of this situation. Union members have "gotten away with murder" for decades. Why should this be any different? Having said that , since this incident occured I have been waiting with interest to see how the "New" Brewer/Milton alliance would handle this-looks like same old , same old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st27 Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 "investigation revealed that action likely condoned by some management" For all of you, myself included, appalled by this wildcat strike, the above quote from the press release is the likely reason why there will be no immediate disciplinary action.Pretty hard to fire somebody, have the resulting greivance end up before an arbitrator and have to explain why the company knew about the illegal action and did nothing about it for a period of time..to the extent that labour thought it was an accepted practice. I would still like to see all that walked fired.For the company its still one step ahead, two back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moeman Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I disagree to a certain extent. You have a point about past-practice. They probably realized that they weren't going to have much luck firing those who were caught cheating. Think about this though. Would firing a crapload of people and inconveniencing even more customers be proactive? I think that had the company proceeded with it's course of action, we would still be parked today. Not just YYZ, everywhere. The IAM would have shut us down. That would have been a far worse outcome for our customers and the company than a few hours' inconvenience. They acknowledged that the problem wasn't so much the fact that people were abusing the system, it was that it was done with the consent/knowledge of those in charge. Will those in charge be shot? Probably. Should those that were abusing the system knowingly be disciplined? Absolutely. But for long term labour peace and an immediate end to the issue, the source of the problem had to be dealt with and the termination of anyone caught abusing the system in the future had to be made clear. This will no longer be tolerated and the punishment will be severe. I like this Mr. Brewer. Instead of punishing everyone for the misdeeds of the few, he has dealt with the real problem which was the nudge-nudge, wink-wink approval by those in charge of the manpower. And by not punishing those who were doing what their supervisors allowed them to do, he has also probably gained their support as well. I like the direction he is taking on the labour relations front. It's refreshing, to say the least. I still disagree with the fact that these people were knowingly fudging the numbers, but I think Mr. Brewer and his team probably did the best thing possible for the future of AC, labour relations, and our customers. And if he's to sell off our Ground Handling division, a happy group of workers is a much easier sell than one that is mad at the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest acyyc Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I just hope people remember these were the IAM members in YYZ and don't paint everyone with the same brush. I do not agree with what happened. These members will make things alot harder for other members at other stations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stickle Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 Do we have no balls at the top. I am extremely disappointed with the very spineless approach that we took with the IAM. I think that this will only be the start, now that the unions can see that they can push the right buttons. At the very least, send a signal by dumping the management that allowed this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sambucca Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 I think that this will only be the start, now that the unions can see that they can push the right buttons. This has been the case for as long as I can remember. Let's face it ...management fears the unions. IMO Milton is losing his chance to show employee's and customers that the "New Air Canada" will tolerate this crap no longer. Short term pain for long term gain and I bet that a vast majority of the employee's would applaud a hard line response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manwest Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 An AC Ground *worker* responds: on A-net Username: YYZACGUY From Canada, joined May 2004, 46 posts, RR: 0 Reply: 43 Posted Thu Jan 20 2005 11:14:17 UTC+1 and read 990 times: I work and was part of the walk out today!!!!! By the way I just got home from working some OT to help get everything back to normal. Any way here's what was going on. AC knew this has been going on for years and this time they decided to get corporate security they came in and installed pin hole cameras in the punch in punch out room. They be watching us for the last month. So what we do as a employee we give our punch card to some one that is there later and they put it in or folder. One guy who was drunk on the job the night they cracked down was caught with 16 or so cards so they went in to all the mail folders and took 140 cards. The vp then writes a letter saying that there has been fraudulent use of the time card and those who have been caught will be punished and terminated. For the past 10 days people have been stressed out an dworried the company was not getting back to us. We all find out that we are the only station to have to punch in out. See when done early we should be able to go home nothing else to do there. Like they are in other stations. That's was the icing on the cake why we walked out but We took pay cuts We got bumped down to part time We got out shift premiums taken away The morale of the employee's went down, We see AC spent $45 million on Celine Dion and a new paint job with a new uniform. Milton gives himself a $20 million dollar bonus and this just as we exit bankrupt how would you feel as a employee? I know our job is the passengers but come on 200 people went down to PT and the people that got laid off lost jobs. I do not know any one that would be happy so understand please sorry for making it so long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrench Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 This is a real intelligent outlook on this subject. Don't forget to mention the fact that "being drunk on the job" is in itself grounds for firing. For God's sake man.... are the whole bunch of you missing a few screws? I hope the senior management comes down with the full weight of the legal system on all those that did this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrench Posted January 20, 2005 Share Posted January 20, 2005 IAMAW MEMBERSHIP ILLEGAL WALK-OUT – TORONTO AIRPORT Yesterday, our Aircraft Services employees at Pearson Airport staged a four-hour illegal walk-out. With our Toronto operations halted, the impact on our customers was significant. Customers on some arriving aircraft were detained onboard for up to a few hours prior to being deplaned, and most domestic and transborder flights arriving and departing Toronto were cancelled for the balance of the day. We are back to a full operation at Toronto this morning. This illegal job action was in response to an investigation which revealed that some aircraft services employees were fraudulently abusing the time and attendance system by swiping out other employees while others were violating established company policies regarding time and attendance. During the course of the investigation, it was also determined that this fraudulent activity was likely condoned by some of our management personnel. This institutionalized form of corrupt conduct cannot be tolerated. An agreement was reached to resolve the issue with local IAMAW representatives whereby the union and the company agreed that any time transgression in the future will result in immediate termination. This agreement will enable a fresh start, where such behaviour by ANY employee from this point forward is grounds for dismissal. Most importantly, it also allowed us to minimize escalating actions that negatively impact our customers and will improve staffing levels at Toronto resulting in enhanced service levels. “The action taken by this group of employees to achieve their goals cannot be condoned. Over the past 18 months, we have worked hard at winning back customers and it’s important that we not lose the momentum we’ve built,” said Montie Brewer, President and CEO of Air Canada. It is unfortunate that many of you, particularly those working the front lines yesterday, were impacted by the actions of this group of fellow employees. Clearly, this activity demonstrates the requirement to evolve the way we deal with each other as employees. Hopefully this event provides us with the opportunity to drive forward the process of change towards an environment based on trust and respect for each other. “I’d like to thank those of you who worked hard under very difficult circumstances to take care of our customers yesterday – you know first-hand what it takes to maintain the loyalty of our customers and how each and every one of us has to do their part,” said Montie. Just read this again and I have to believe that this is done as a joke. I can't imagine how anyone that brilliant could get by an Air Canada interview process and come out of it with a job. What a freaking MORON! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongTimer V Posted January 22, 2005 Share Posted January 22, 2005 Hey Wrench,you made it past the interview.,anger management may help you B.S. baffles brain's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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