AC Appeals Arbitrators decision....

[Kip Powick]

Wasn't there another group in AC that tried to turn around a "binding" arbitration sometime ago.....even though they too agree to the word 'binding'???? :rolleyes:

Air Canada appeals arbitrator’s pension ruling

brent jang — TRANSPORTATION REPORTER

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Air Canada is trying to overturn an arbitrator’s decision that backs a union plan to create a novel pension system for new sales and service agents.

The Canadian Auto Workers union, which represents 3,800 employees stationed at airport counters and call-in centres, said it is “astonished” by Air Canada’s notice that it will appeal the arbitrator’s pension ruling made last month. The fight over pension reform led to a three-day strike in June, but the two sides had agreed to let arbitrator Kevin Burkett resolve the impasse.

Mr. Burkett sided with the CAW’s proposal to launch a hybrid system for new hires that blends the company’s traditional defined-benefit pension with a less costly defined-contribution plan. Air Canada wants to stop new hires from entering the defined-benefit system and instead instead place them entirely into defined-contribution pensions.

Ken Lewenza, the CAW’s national president, said he is “disgusted” by management’s legal manoeuvring, describing it as “harmful and destructive to a collective bargaining relationship.”

He said it shouldn’t matter who won or lost in the pension case because the two sides agreed in advance that any decision by the neutral arbitrator would be binding.

Air Canada filed its application for judicial review with the Federal Court of Canada and Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Montreal-based Air Canada believes that there were flaws in the arbitration process and the three-person board chaired by Mr. Burkett didn’t properly address the issue of the long-term sustainability of the airline’s pension system.

“The board acted without jurisdiction or acted beyond its jurisdiction,” Air Canada said in its legal filings. “The board erred in failing to consider, misapprehending and ignoring the actuarial evidence.”

The filings say a new arbitration review is required and also accuse the CAW of unfairly amending its final offer on pension reform.

“This move to judicial review by Air Canada violates our agreement and should be rescinded forthwith,” Mr. Lewenza wrote in a letter to Air Canada chief executive officer Calin Rovinescu. “The company’s current legal action is unprecedented in character and should be withdrawn.”

Management’s move against the CAW will place further strain on labour relations at the airline, which has been embroiled in a bitter dispute with its 6,800 flight attendants over wages, working conditions and a proposal to start a low-cost carrier.

Mr. Lewenza and other CAW leaders said in a memo to members that talks have been cancelled between the union and Air Canada actuaries, halting the implementation of the hybrid pension for new hires.

“This is absolutely unconscionable and reflects the arrogance and lack of respect for the process and our members,” the CAW said.

Air Canada is striving to control its retirement-related costs as it grapples with a $2.1-billion pension solvency deficit. The airline averted a financial crisis in 2009 with the help of its unions, which supported measures to provide pension funding relief.

[Guest]

Wasn't there another group in AC that tried to turn around a "binding" arbitration sometime ago.....even though they too agree to the word 'binding'???? :rolleyes:

Air Canada appeals arbitrator's pension ruling

brent jang — TRANSPORTATION REPORTER

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Air Canada is trying to overturn an arbitrator's decision that backs a union plan to create a novel pension system for new sales and service agents.

The Canadian Auto Workers union, which represents 3,800 employees stationed at airport counters and call-in centres, said it is "astonished" by Air Canada's notice that it will appeal the arbitrator's pension ruling made last month. The fight over pension reform led to a three-day strike in June, but the two sides had agreed to let arbitrator Kevin Burkett resolve the impasse.

Mr. Burkett sided with the CAW's proposal to launch a hybrid system for new hires that blends the company's traditional defined-benefit pension with a less costly defined-contribution plan. Air Canada wants to stop new hires from entering the defined-benefit system and instead instead place them entirely into defined-contribution pensions.

Ken Lewenza, the CAW's national president, said he is "disgusted" by management's legal manoeuvring, describing it as "harmful and destructive to a collective bargaining relationship."

He said it shouldn't matter who won or lost in the pension case because the two sides agreed in advance that any decision by the neutral arbitrator would be binding.

Air Canada filed its application for judicial review with the Federal Court of Canada and Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Montreal-based Air Canada believes that there were flaws in the arbitration process and the three-person board chaired by Mr. Burkett didn't properly address the issue of the long-term sustainability of the airline's pension system.

"The board acted without jurisdiction or acted beyond its jurisdiction," Air Canada said in its legal filings. "The board erred in failing to consider, misapprehending and ignoring the actuarial evidence."

The filings say a new arbitration review is required and also accuse the CAW of unfairly amending its final offer on pension reform.

"This move to judicial review by Air Canada violates our agreement and should be rescinded forthwith," Mr. Lewenza wrote in a letter to Air Canada chief executive officer Calin Rovinescu. "The company's current legal action is unprecedented in character and should be withdrawn."

Management's move against the CAW will place further strain on labour relations at the airline, which has been embroiled in a bitter dispute with its 6,800 flight attendants over wages, working conditions and a proposal to start a low-cost carrier.

Mr. Lewenza and other CAW leaders said in a memo to members that talks have been cancelled between the union and Air Canada actuaries, halting the implementation of the hybrid pension for new hires.

"This is absolutely unconscionable and reflects the arrogance and lack of respect for the process and our members," the CAW said.

Air Canada is striving to control its retirement-related costs as it grapples with a $2.1-billion pension solvency deficit. The airline averted a financial crisis in 2009 with the help of its unions, which supported measures to provide pension funding relief.

CAW's Letter to Rovinescu

[Dork]

Forbes Magazine:

Retirement Heist: How Firms Plunder Workers' Nest Eggs

Steve Denning

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

In December 2010, General Electric [GE] held its annual meeting in New York City for analysts and shareholders. CEO Jeff Immelt reported on GE’s financial health and said that GE’s pension plan was a problem. “The pension has been a drag for a decade,” he said. It would cause the company to lose 13 cents per share the coming year. In order to control costs, GE was—regretfully—going to close the pension plan for new employees. The implication was that workers’ pensions were dragging the company down.

What Immelt didn’t mention was that GE’s pension plans had actually contributed billions of dollars to the company’s bottom line over the last 15 years, earnings that the executives had taken credit for. Nor did he mention that GE hadn’t contributed anything to the workers’ pension plans since 1987 and still had enough to cover all the current and future retirees.

Nor did he mention that the executive pensions for GE executives were a burden. Unlike the plans for the 250,000 workers and retirees, the executive pensions had a $4.4 billion obligation that steadily drained cash from the company’s coffers, including $573 million over the past three years alone.

Why was GE closing its fully funded pension plan, while continuing its financially burdensome executive plan? This is the question to which Ellen Schultz’s incisive new book, Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers (Portfolio, 2011) offers a powerful answer.

A carefully planned heist

She explains that the current retirement crisis is “not a demographic accident. It was manufactured by an alliance of two groups: top executives and their facilitators in the retirement industry—benefits consultants, insurance companies and banks.”

Executives are viewed “as beleaguered captains valiantly trying to keep their overloaded ships from being sunk in a perfect storm. In reality, they’re the silent pirates who looted the ships and left them to sink, along with the retirees, as they sailed away safely in their lifeboats.”

In 2000, most pensions were fully funded

Two decades ago, pensions were well funded, due to laws and regulations passed in the 1970s and 1980s. By 2000, pension plans at many large companies had large surpluses that would have covered all current and future retirees’ pensions without them having to contribute anything.

Yet US firms found ways to siphon off billions of dollars in assets from the pension plans. Verizon used assets to finance downsizings. GE sold pension surpluses in restructuring deals, indirectly converting pension assets into cash. Many firms clandestinely cut benefits, using “actuarial sleight of hand to disguise the cuts.”

Cutting benefits boosted earnings

Cutting benefits boosted earnings. New accounting rules “turned retiree benefits plans into cookie jars of potential earnings enhancements and provided employers with the means to convert the trillion dollars in pensions and retiree benefits into immediate dollar-for-dollar benefit for the company.”

Since accounting rules rewarded employers for cutting benefits, retiree benefits plans soon morphed into profit centers. Retiree plans became handy earnings-management centers at the expense of the retirees. Yet as workers’ retirement benefits were cut, “supplemental executive pensions” ballooned along with escalating deferred compensation. “Today,” reports Schultz, “it’s common for a large company to owe its executives several billion dollars in pensions and deferred compensation.”

It’s these growing “executive legacy liabilities” that account for much of the “growing pension costs”. Executive liabilities are often large, growing, underfunded or unfunded, and hidden, buried within the figures for regular pensions.

“With no punitive damages under pension law, employers face little risk when they unilaterally slash benefits, even when promised in writing, since they can pay their lawyers with pension assets and drag out the cases until the retirees give up or die.”

Today, Schultz reports, “pension plans are collectively underfunded, hundreds are frozen, and retiree health benefits are an endangered species. And as executive pay and executive pensions spiral, these executive liabilities are slowly replacing pension obligations on many corporate balance sheets.”

They all do it

The firms involved in these activities are not a few small unscrupulous operators. They are the best-known companies in the USA, including: GE, Verison, Dupont, Northrop Grumman, Marathon Oil, Lucent, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, AT&T, US Airways, Delta Air Lines, Cigna, Bank of America, Caterpillar, Deere & Co, UPS—the list goes on and on.

Schultz sums up the situation:

The masterminds of this heist should take a bow: They managed to take hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement benefits that were intended for millions of workers and divert them to corporate coffers, shareholders, and their own pockets. And they’re still at it. It might not be possible to resuscitate pension plans, but it isn’t too late to expose the machinations of the retirement industry, which has its tentacles into every type of retirement benefit: profit-sharing plans, 401(k)s, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and plans for public employees, nonprofits, small businesses, and even churches. The retirement industry has exported its tactics, using them to achieve similar outcomes in retirement plans in Canada, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere, and has big plans for Social Security and its overseas equivalents as well. Unless it is reined in, the global retirement industry will continue to capture retirement wealth earned by many to enrich a relative few.

A systemic solution is needed

Does any of this sound familiar?

Readers of this blog may recall that pursuit of short-run profits pushes organizations into a default model of management that focuses on efficiencies at the cost of long run value to customers, undermines the capacity of the firm to innovate, kills commitment among workers whose full engagement is crucial to the firm’s future and results in sub-optimal financial returns for the firm itself.

Readers may also recall that pursuit of short-run profits led to foreign outsourcing that destroyed not only jobs in this country but ultimately the capacity to compete in whole sectors of the economy, which are now permanently lost, because the knowledge has gone. As a result, Amazon couldn’t make a Kindle in the USA, even if it wanted to.

So it should hardly come as a surprise that retirement is another area where the cancer of short-term profit seeking is carving its inevitable path towards disaster.

Firms have fallen into this mode of operating in part because firms operating with traditional management are not producing the returns they used to. Therefore managers become desperate and resort to tactics that hurt the firm in the medium term while meeting the immediate need of showing financial returns in the here and now.

Getting to the root cause: pursuit of short-term profits

As a result, focusing on fixing pensions by itself will not be enough. In addition to pension reform, we need to get the root cause of the problem: what is needed is a fundamental shift from shareholder capitalism to customer capitalism, i.e. from traditional management to radical management.

When the whole firm is devoted to systematically delighting its customers by providing a continuous stream of additional value and providing it sooner, through continuous innovation, as at Apple [AAPL], Amazon [AMZN] and Salesforce [CRM], it makes enough money that it doesn’t have to resort to looting the workers’ retirement to make ends meet.

______________

Steve Denning’s most recent book is: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management (Jossey-Bass, 2010).

[mrlupin]

Binding or not, I do not think AC has a choice in the matter. It has to appeal the decision. Put quite simply, it does not have the money to support the present pension scheme, it isn't generating the profit necessary to cover the pension shortfall and it will keep hacking at the pension plan until it is merely a fragment of it's former self.

For the longterm

-Once you get new hires off the DB plan, you have taken care of the longterm future liabilities. Then you are left with your active workforce (still on the DB plan) and the retirees.

For the present

-The removal of pension indexation is the only attack that has been carried out on the retirees. More attacks are to be expected for this group as they are the ones immediately concerned by the major deficit in the plan.

-Changes in the way the pension is calculated and early retirement penalties are the attack that have been taken on the active employees. These will continue.

Keep in mind that these are just the preliminary moves by a corporation who WILL NOT HAVE THE FUNDS TO MAKE PENSION PAYMENTS IN 2014. Further reductions are to be expected unless major changes occur.

Major factors affecting the pension plan:

- Long term bond rate from the Bank of Canada (affect actuary calculation of pension obligation.Expected to stay low)

- Stock market performance (unstable at this moment and we are almost at the point of double dip recession since none of the factors that caused the first recession have been addressed)

- Government regulations (Conservatives are in power and the Federal government faces a similar problem as AC in that all of it's DB plans are underwater. I think the Harperites are unlikely to attack this problem in the present term as it would most likely cause their complete downfall and un-electability yet pension reforms or cut are likely in their sights.At the moment, the only reform carried out has been to kick the can down the road and increase the number of years available to repay the deficits Link)

- increase life expectancy (affect actuary calculations)

- Market pressures (If your competitors aren't offering pension plans, unless your employer somehow has better yields then the competition, you need to understand the impact these plans have on the overall costs of operating their business. Corporations will of course do their best to reduce their costs and since not very few of the costs incurred are variable from airline to airline, the point where they will be seeking reductions are predictable )

Not what one would call a rosy picture.

Solutions exist but I do not think that as a society, we are ready for them. Things will have to get allot worse before they get better...

Éric

[rudder]

Binding or not...

That mindset pretty well sums it up.

[mrlupin]

That mindset pretty well sums it up.

It isn't my mindset... I would love AC to have a fully funded pension. While we are at it, I would love Transat and Westjet and all Canadian companies to have similar pensions (and funded to boot). It might reduce the inclination of corporations to attack pensions as a way to reduce costs. As long as there are haves and have nots (pensions), the push to reduce and eliminate pensions will continue, until no one has... Then the problems will manifest themselves with our aging population.

Rudder,

How does one handle the situation if one is bound to pay an amount and one does not have the funds? How would you do it?

Kick the can down the road and expect things to be better in ten years? (haven't we already tried that?)

[Dork]

See previous posting. Would say more but it is not a free country and am unable to do so.

For reference, see the movie Good Fellas..the scene where folks with briefcases come in and load them up with cash.

Enough said.

[boestar]

And all the while I keep huming along with a DC plan and NONE of these issues related to company shortfalls.. Don't worry be happy.

[Dork]

CAW

at 11:41 on October 24, 2011, EDT.

The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The head of the union for Air Canada's customer service workers says a fragile labour peace with the company could be in jeopardy after the airline challenged an arbitrator's ruling on pensions.

CAW national director Ken Lewenza says Air Canada's request for a federal court review of the binding deal reached this summer by an arbitrator amounts to a violation of the collective agreement.

Lewenza says that means the union is also in a position to violate the agreement, with the possibility of direct job action, including protests, work to rule actions or even a strike.

The two sides finally reached a deal this summer after a heated dispute, a three-day strike and the threat of back to work legislation.

Air Canada (TSX:AC. takes issue with the decision to create a hybrid pension plan for new hires and wants a federal court to review how the arbitrator reached his decision.

Lewenza says the latest dispute could cause the company problems when bargaining with other unions, such as the CUPE unit representing flight attendants in an upcoming arbitration process.

[Jaydee]

The Market thinks AC is a buy right now.

http://money.ca.msn.com/video?cp-documentid=40739112-e2db-449e-8b29-d2f7ffd391fa

[rudder]

It isn't my mindset... I would love AC to have a fully funded pension. While we are at it, I would love Transat and Westjet and all Canadian companies to have similar pensions (and funded to boot). It might reduce the inclination of corporations to attack pensions as a way to reduce costs. As long as there are haves and have nots (pensions), the push to reduce and eliminate pensions will continue, until no one has... Then the problems will manifest themselves with our aging population.

Rudder,

How does one handle the situation if one is bound to pay an amount and one does not have the funds? How would you do it?

Kick the can down the road and expect things to be better in ten years? (haven't we already tried that?)

What were the terms of reference for the arbitration? Was it agreed that it would be based on either of the parties submissions? Was it agreed that the decision would be binding upon the parties?

This was the agreement that ended the strike. Now AC is unhappy that they didn't get what they wanted in the arbitration and are grasping at straws.

AC was once labelled the 'Bosnia of labour relations'. Nothing has changed.

[neverminds]

All I know is that being a lawyer for AC must be one sweet gig. Talk about job security for life...

[mrlupin]

An arbitrator seems to be another safe bet job.

I think Martin Teplitsky has been arbitrating for a few years at AC. I am sure it must be an entertaining job with tons of surprises... Never a dull moment.

Concerning the "binding arbitration", and AC's actions. If anything, it should tense up labor relations (if labor relations can get worse?)

I am not defending AC, I am merely pointing out that if they do not find a way to fly airplanes profitably, another recession could easily have the airline up against the ropes,again. If you look at the last financial statement, under liabilities, you will see the pension plan had a deficit of 3.3B in June. The market has since dropped by 11%. Correlation between the pension plan and the stock market isn't 100% but I am sure the deficit has grown.

It will be interesting to see if the courts decide to review AC's case... And if they do, what will be the reasons invoked?

In the mean time, we just keep kicking that pension plan can down the road... and using the ostrich strategy to problem solving...

[deicer]

Does this also affect the Executive Pension Plan?

[mrlupin]

Does this also affect the Executive Pension Plan?

Maybe if we get a bit of lead by example, our CEO can set himself up a DC plan in the spirit of that is the plan that makes the most sense for the corporation...

[CanadaEH]

I don't really see a way where things end positively for AC and its unions??

[Critter]

The executive at AC can do whatever it wants. What are the unions going to do? Strike?

Labour relations at AC was really turning around. The executive has successfully reversed that.

I wonder if CR is heavily invested in WJ?

[mrlupin]

I don't really see a way where things end positively for AC and its unions??

The growth opportunities should be quite limited in the next few years. If we look at our neighbors to the south, after years of credit supported growth, it is now a time for de-leveraging. This should result in below average GDP growth and with salaries staying flat while inflation is above 3% it is likely that the consumer will be tightening his belt.

We in Canada have a tendency of thinking that what is happening in the US can not happen here but I differ. A correction in the housing sector, a drop in China's growth or consumption of resources, disarray in Europe, any one of those factors has the potential to plunge the Canadian economy into recession. The Canadian debt level is quite close to what the US has (on a per capita basis) if we combine Federal and provincial debt. We have the same weak points... For those who think that our banks are in amazing shape, well our money managers have much more world exposure then most think. When the next downturn hits, we will see how well they fare but they too have the potential to negatively affect the Canadian economy.

In that sort of environment, consumers need to make the most of their income. In doing so, they always cut luxury consumption items. Aircraft travel is usually one of the first things cut. In that environment, AC will not have much maneuvering room and since it is barely profitable when the economy is growing, a recession is likely to result in another trip in front of the CCAA judge.

Our leaders probably know this. This is why they have been driving wedges everywhere. Selling off Aeroplan, selling off AVEOS, selling Jazz, outsourcing call centers, outsourcing the HR department and if my predictions are good, one would expect them to try to sell the ground handling services to the highest bidder sometime in the next few years. (That department appears to have been getting allot of new equipment while the carrier is barely making profit. All these purchases could be to make that division more marketable to possible buyers. After having imparted most high cost divisions that could be sold, the only remaining one that I can think of is ACGHS... I can not think of one reason why AC would keep that division if it is costing it more then what it would pay to have that service done externally)

The resultant airline would have very little exposure to non core activities. Remains to be seen if they will be able to get the required productivity from a workforce that just saw them take the scalpel to the company... but come that time, maybe a CEO change will be carried out and someone new will have a kick at the can after the previous CEO modified the airline's structure.

So I too wonder how things will turn out as I see no easy way out of this for AC and it's unions.

[Guest]

The growth opportunities should be quite limited in the next few years. If we look at our neighbors to the south, after years of credit supported growth, it is now a time for de-leveraging. This should result in below average GDP growth and with salaries staying flat while inflation is above 3% it is likely that the consumer will be tightening his belt.

We in Canada have a tendency of thinking that what is happening in the US can not happen here but I differ. A correction in the housing sector, a drop in China's growth or consumption of resources, disarray in Europe, any one of those factors has the potential to plunge the Canadian economy into recession. The Canadian debt level is quite close to what the US has (on a per capita basis) if we combine Federal and provincial debt. We have the same weak points... For those who think that our banks are in amazing shape, well our money managers have much more world exposure then most think. When the next downturn hits, we will see how well they fare but they too have the potential to negatively affect the Canadian economy.

In that sort of environment, consumers need to make the most of their income. In doing so, they always cut luxury consumption items. Aircraft travel is usually one of the first things cut. In that environment, AC will not have much maneuvering room and since it is barely profitable when the economy is growing, a recession is likely to result in another trip in front of the CCAA judge.

Our leaders probably know this. This is why they have been driving wedges everywhere. Selling off Aeroplan, selling off AVEOS, selling Jazz, outsourcing call centers, outsourcing the HR department and if my predictions are good, one would expect them to try to sell the ground handling services to the highest bidder sometime in the next few years. (That department appears to have been getting allot of new equipment while the carrier is barely making profit. All these purchases could be to make that division more marketable to possible buyers. After having imparted most high cost divisions that could be sold, the only remaining one that I can think of is ACGHS... I can not think of one reason why AC would keep that division if it is costing it more then what it would pay to have that service done externally)

The resultant airline would have very little exposure to non core activities. Remains to be seen if they will be able to get the required productivity from a workforce that just saw them take the scalpel to the company... but come that time, maybe a CEO change will be carried out and someone new will have a kick at the can after the previous CEO modified the airline's structure.

So I too wonder how things will turn out as I see no easy way out of this for AC and it's unions.

Eric,

I think you have hit the nail square on the hit in regards to selling ACGHS. The AVEOS fiasco was just a trial run to see how things would go. I think you are going to see the sale of ACGHS sooner than anyone guesses.

[dagger]

It's not hard to imagine the reason for Air Canada to demonstrate that it doesn't believe that the CAW arb board was right. AC is going to re-state its case to the CIRB any day now re: the flight attendants, and there are other unions to come. I imagine AC doesn't want future arbitrators to think it accepts the Burkett award, even if the end result is that it has to implement it for the CAW.

[FA@AC]

I imagine AC doesn't want future arbitrators to think it accepts the Burkett award, even if the end result is that it has to implement it for the CAW.

My understanding of the pension provisions offered by AC in TA2 was that they were pretty much identical to those of the Burkett award. Seems wierd (bad faith?) that AC now takes the position that it doesn't accept it.

[mrlupin]

Eric,

I think you have hit the nail square on the hit in regards to selling ACGHS. The AVEOS fiasco was just a trial run to see how things would go. I think you are going to see the sale of ACGHS sooner than anyone guesses.

Driving wedges to divide is what large businesses do to get labor rates in alignment with what the industry pays.

It isn't limited to ground handling or call centers.

Take Jazz for example, ACE made Jazz attractive for a spin off by paying Jazz X dollars for every mile flown(I am using a $/miles formula in this example but the basic outcome will be the same regardless of the way Jazz is paid) AC then got it's pilots to approve the creation and outsourcing of flying to Sky Regional, AKA Sky Service. What comes next? AC just removed the monopolistic position Jazz held as a feeder. It is now free face off the two feeders against one another to lower the price it will be paying for those services. If Jazz wants to keep the flying, it has to bid X-10% How does it afford that? It might have to start squeezing employees... It is a vicious circle.

The same is likely with the Air Canada low cost carrier. If it is established, it will be used to divide the labor group.

Let's speculate that another recession hits at which time AC has in place it's low cost carrier. AC will again face tough times in that it will be hit hard by a reduction of demand. It can not lower costs to stimulate demand like Westjet did in it's younger days and since its cost structure is high, there is a certain emergency to shrink to adjust to the new demand curve. If the airline ends up in financial difficulty, a Conservative government is almost certain to be receptive to their "essential service carrier". Under court appointed judge, arbitrator or whatever the chosen mediator is, it would then be quite easy for AC to demonstrate how it's costs are too high and productivity too low at the mainline by comparing them to the discount airline division and some of the competitors. Sensitive to AC's demands and under direction from the Harperites it is quite fathomable the mediator would rule in favor of the corporation...

In a strange way, the Conservatives are the best thing that could have happen to AC.

[Seeker]

AC then got it's pilots to approve the creation and outsourcing of flying to Sky Regional AKA Sky Service.

Yeah.....except the pilots didn't approve the creation of Sky Regional - this is being grieved as we speak!

[rudder]

I imagine AC doesn't want future arbitrators to think it accepts the Burkett award, even if the end result is that it has to implement it for the CAW.

That's right. In the world of AC binding arbitration still means that AC has to accept the result. That's not how binding arbitration works. You agree to the process. You live with the result. These guys are unbelievable.

[Seeker]

My understanding of the pension provisions offered by AC in TA2 was that they were pretty much identical to those of the Burkett award. Seems wierd (bad faith?) that AC now takes the position that it doesn't accept it.

"Bad Faith" is only a concept that is applied to a union when the corporation doesn't like what it got, not to be applied to a company when they renege or weasel out of some prior commitment.