Guest M. McRae Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Air Canada Reaches Agreement with IAMAW, Cupe and Calda on Labour Cost Realignment MONTREAL, May 28 /CNW Telbec/ - Air Canada announced today that marathon negotiations with its unions facilitated by Mr. Justice Warren Winkler, the court-appointed facilitator, are now concluded with tentative agreements reached with all its unions except the Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA). The pilots' union is presently considering the company's last proposal which is consistent with the cost savings target set by the company and follows the approach taken with other labour groups. Tentative agreements were reached late Tuesday with the International Association of Machinists and Aeropace Workers (IAMAW) representing 11,000 technical operations and airport ground service personnel, CUPE representing 6,700 flight attendants and CALDA representing the airline's 100 flight dispatchers. A tentative agreement had been reached earlier with the CAW Airline Division, representing 6,000 customer sales and service agents and crew schedulers. Tentative agreements have also been reached with all unions representing Air Canada Jazz employees - the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), CALDA, CUPE and Teamsters Canada. The cost reductions in the agreements reached to date were primarily obtained through productivity improvements including workforce reduction and wage rollbacks. The agreements are subject to ratification by union membership. The company has agreed that pension benefits will be unaffected. Mr. Justice Warren Winkler was appointed on May 9, 2003 by Mr. Justice James Farley of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to facilitate Air Canada's labour cost restructuring under CCAA. On May 21, at Justice Winkler's request, Air Canada presented comprehensive proposals to its unions outlining the specific cost reductions required by each labour group at Air Canada and Air Canada Jazz. In order to accelerate the restructuring process, Justice Winkler set a 5:00 p.m. EDT May 27 as a deadline for the company and its unions to reach negotiated agreements. The deadline was subsequently extended to 9:00 p.m. EDT. http://www.newswire.ca/releases/May2003/28/c6429.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Sowsun Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 It has become fairly obvious that Air Canada doesn't want to reach an agreement with the pilots. Back in April, prior to CCAA the pilots offered a 22% wage cut for 4 years, plus other concessions. This was similar to what the CAW had already negotiated But the company said NO. At the time, we all wondered why they refused it. It seemed like they actually wanted CCAA. Now the pilots are offering essentially the same type of concessions as the other employee groups , but AGAIN the company is refusing it. You have to wonder why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 100 Above Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 "The pilots' union is presently considering the company's last proposal which is consistent with the cost savings target set by the company and follows the approach taken with other labour groups." You gotta be f%*$#ing joking me !! The demand list that management gave us was a bloody farce. This 15% pay cut is nowhere near what we would take if we accepted their joke offer. For some pilots, they are looking at 35 % pay cut (straight wages), then 40 % pension cut, then all of the other contract slashes ( i.e vacation, stats, etc.... ) we are being taken to the f$&^*ing cleaners. I am sick of the continuos bashing the pilots are taking on this forum. If anyone with a brain actually looked at what we were asked for, it is easy to see why the other unions got off without losing their pensions and for some, their wages after two months. WE MAGGOTS would be supplementing all of the other unions. Like Hell !!!!! No wonder we are &%$@! off !!!! Of course we are still holding out. If anyone else was asked for 40% pension, 35% pay cut, etc..etc.. etc.. wouldn't you still be negotiating. Just get off our backs and maybe support us in this last battle. Geeesh !!! 100 Above Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest George Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 the pilots offered a 22% wage cut for 4 years Not true, according to my sources. ACPA offered 22% for 48 weeks, in line with a deal that the CAW worked out, better check your facts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Max Continuous Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 >> Now the pilots are offering essentially the same type of concessions as the other employee groups , but AGAIN the company is refusing it. You have to wonder why? << I agree, and don't get that either. Like how much is enough? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Mike; Re "Back in April, prior to CCAA the pilots offered a 22% wage cut for 4 years, plus other concessions." Just a minor note... The company proposed 22% for eight years and ACPA responded with the same cut for 48 weeks just to get the ball rolling immediately while the more complex issues were dealt with. It was then, that the company said no, and that was on March 31rst. We know what happened on April 1rst. If we think about what's going on right now, we're still at the table. I see the deadline has been extended to 2100hrs EDT tonight (May 28th). Certainly that has to be seen as a positive thing because it means serious work is being done and Justice Farley has obviously deemed it appropriate to continue that process. Someone said it below and I wholeheartedly agree...the Collective Agreement is a complex document which is the result of over 60 years of work. You can not just dismantle it whole without creating significant problems. So the fact that they're taking the time to do this is encouraging. Now for those who haven't read or know about pilot contracts, many clauses (but not all, of course!) have to do with flight safety items which the pilots, over many years, have deemed necessary. For example, those who know my posts from the past will recall that the CARS are anything but satisfactory in crew duty days, monthly hours flown and crew augmentation on long-haul and ultra-long haul flying. The Canadian CARS are among the most lax in the world. ACPA has spent a large portion of its "negotiating dollars", (because there's only so much on the table) to "buy" proper and safe crew augmentation, as well as realistic (read "relatively fatigue-free") duty days. These items have not been pulled from hats, but are the results of decades of industry study on fatigue, rest, sleep patterns, circadian rythm work and accident investigation. I doubt very much whether anyone actually wishes to do a wholesale dismantling of those kinds of clauses. So careful work has to be done to protect some areas of the CA while yielding on others. Because many parts of the contract are linked or have effects on other sections, care has to be taken to ensure an understanding of those effects. This takes time and does not lend itself to a blunt, "take-it-or-leave-it" approach. Not without consequence (for all parties), anyway. But the company has asked to work with these constraints, as well as almost all other aspects of the Collective Agreement, and ACPA is at the table, doing so right now. We must assume from the fact that Justice Farley has not stopped the process which is now long past his deadline, that he appreciates and understands these aspects. We're not "holding out" as the media so easily tosses off with characteristic ignorance, but making sure that as the roll-backs occur, what remains provides a level of protection from fatigue issues (for example...there are other flight safety issues in the contract as well) that is realistic in these very difficult economic times. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Mike; Re "Back in April, prior to CCAA the pilots offered a 22% wage cut for 4 years, plus other concessions." Just a minor note... The company proposed 22% for eight years and ACPA responded with the same cut for 48 weeks just to get the ball rolling immediately while the more complex issues were dealt with. It was then, that the company said no, and that was on March 31rst. We know what happened on April 1rst. If we think about what's going on right now, we're still at the table. I see the deadline has been extended to 2100hrs EDT tonight (May 28th). Certainly that has to be seen as a positive thing because it means serious work is being done and Justice Farley has obviously deemed it appropriate to continue that process. Someone said it below and I wholeheartedly agree...the Collective Agreement is a complex document which is the result of over 60 years of work. You can not just dismantle it whole without creating significant problems. So the fact that they're taking the time to do this is encouraging. Now for those who haven't read or know about pilot contracts, many clauses (but not all, of course!) have to do with flight safety items which the pilots, over many years, have deemed necessary. For example, those who know my posts from the past will recall that the CARS are anything but satisfactory in crew duty days, monthly hours flown and crew augmentation on long-haul and ultra-long haul flying. The Canadian CARS are among the most lax in the world. ACPA has spent a large portion of its "negotiating dollars", (because there's only so much on the table) to "buy" proper and safe crew augmentation, as well as realistic (read "relatively fatigue-free" ) duty days. These items have not been pulled from hats, but are the results of decades of industry study on fatigue, rest, sleep patterns, circadian rythm work and accident investigation. I doubt very much whether anyone actually wishes to do a wholesale dismantling of those kinds of clauses. So careful work has to be done to protect some areas of the CA while yielding on others. Because many parts of the contract are linked or have effects on other sections, care has to be taken to ensure an understanding of those effects. This takes time and does not lend itself to a blunt, "take-it-or-leave-it" approach. Not without consequence (for all parties), anyway. But the company has asked to work with these constraints, as well as almost all other aspects of the Collective Agreement, and ACPA is at the table, doing so right now. We must assume from the fact that Justice Farley has not stopped the process which is now long past his deadline, that he appreciates and understands these aspects. We're not "holding out" as the media so easily tosses off with characteristic ignorance, but making sure that as the roll-backs occur, what remains provides a level of protection from fatigue issues (for example...there are other flight safety issues in the contract as well) that is realistic in these very difficult economic times. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Virtual Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 You're right, Don. The money, etc. issues are one thing ....but the safety issues are in a whole other league. Let's hope that we can, at least, keep those 'intact'. Our passengers/customers, and ourselves, depend on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongTimer V Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 We at he IAM were hit with a list of demands,give backs etc.,which seemed to have magically diappeared.Hopfully the same will happen to ACPA.In my over 30 years i've always had respect for you guys and if they wanted to take 40% of my pension i'd be walking to.If it means the other unions chip in more then so be it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Virtual; Well, its serious business because there's consequences to doing this stuff. Like everyone else who's signed up, we need to give at the office, but there's a whole different aspect to that giving, and that's tied in with a professional ethic to ensure that roll-backs don't reduce the margins, if you get my meaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest M. McRae Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 If your remarks are addressed to me, you are killing the messenger. Please note that I did not write the article but merely posted it for the information of all. I suggest you take the matter up with whoever wrote the news release but it does seem to be factual. In the meantime, since there is no polite way to respond further to your post...... ....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 LTV; The "direct hit" is about 15% and is the publicly advertised number. 100 above is completely right. If the demands survive, the cumulative result of all changes could be as high as 45% for some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest YVRCREEP Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Don, Thanks for the clear info. It's nice to have an educated perspective to bury some of the bs on this forum. It's too bad I never got to fly with you on the 340. Take care. Creep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rob Assaf Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Good luck to you Don, and all the rest of your peers. I thank you for your resonable explantion of what is going on. It speaks volumes. I'm especially glad to hear that the process is still underway, albeit after the deadline, it means that there is still hope for a satisfactory conclusion. I realize that any loss of wages/working conditions cannot be classed as a win, but complete loss of the company would be far more painfull finance wise for everyone. I expect that there are more than just AC pilots who wish that 9-11 didn't happen, followed up by SARS, madcow, West Nile, and whatever else fate would deliver us. C3 and Royal pilots in Canada for sure and thousands of pilots around the globe whose livelyhood has been adversely affected recently. I hope it will recover and that we can get back on track to making this career "fun" again and a little less stressfull. Good luck/Bon Chance (sp?) Rob Assaf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Thank you Rob...very kind. We appear to be the last bastion of stability, don't we, and now with all those factors mentioned, even that's gone. I have written thousands of words on "neoliberalism" and the effects such a poltical/economic approach has had on individual lives. Do a Google on the term and see if what has been happening to individual employees isn't covered by the term. A good friend, caught in similar circumstances came up with a fine phrase to describe that which cannot be classified as a win. He said, "All we're doing here is trying to retard the retreat." Good words. Hope we can have a coffee and a chat sometime in VR... Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest azztech Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Yet another deadline.I guess the company was bluffing when it said take it or leave it.It's too bad all the other unions capitulated so quickly.Maybe there would have been better deals out there after all.Obviously the company has no interest in closing it's doors.It just wants to reduce it's payroll.Maybe so it can easily be sold? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 azztech; Re "I guess the company was bluffing when it said take it or leave it." No, I don't think so. I think they were serious. As I observe in other posts, I think that the parties found that the process was much more complex and that slavishly following what was after all an artificial deadline, wasn't going to produce the results everyone was after, as stated in my post above. Let's think about it for a sec'...if Justice Farley simply "pulled the handles" at 1701EDT even as the process was proceeding but was unfinished, what are the results? First, Justice Farley's mandate is to find a solution, not declare the company bankrupt. If one could be seen to be happening but was taking a bit more time, would the Justice risk it all (including damage to the entire process) for the sake of a few hours? His mandate is to keep Air Canada in business, not take it into receivership. The latter is the result if the stakeholders weren't cooperating. Looks to me like they are. Second, getting here took years...why sacrifice all the work and roll-backs obtained to so far, just for a few hours? Third, and perhaps this hasn't been appreciated enough or clearly enough stated: - there are flight safety provisions in the ACPA Collective Agreement, just as there are in any pilot agreement for very good reason, as described. Dismantling those is not just rolling back wages. Training, duty days, monthly hours flown, scheduling rules, reserve rules and so on all have certain flight safety implications and both the changes and the resulting increased risk must be assessed. To do less would be irresponsible, as it would be equally irresponsible to simply make airline crews fly CARS limits, especially on overseas routes. The literature is full of examples of why the industry cannot do this. That's why I think the time is being taken. I doubt very much whether a "better deal" could have been tweaked in the last hours. That's painting a "devil on the wall" picture and is a fruitless consideration. Hope this helps... Cheers, Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GDR Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Hi Don Sometimes we do sing from the same song sheet. Good post It is looking more and more as if we are going to pull out of this. The next big step will be to make this company prosperous over an extended period of time. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest azztech Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Good Post! But I'm still a little confused.I thought I heard for sure a "take it or leave it" message in a post out there.I know thats how my union went in and "negotiated" the so call deal we got.So what it boils down to is..."thems that got the best lawyers...win". And lets face it the pilots at Air Canada have the best lawyers!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sleveen Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 I can't believe the other A/C unions are are getting away with no pay cut's or very small ones, agents, ramp, and F/A's are the ones that should be taken the big hits at A/C not the pilots. Sorry if that hurts anybodys feeling but chuckin bags or handing out pop does not desevre the money these people are being paid. I think thats where A/C should be doing most of there cutting, I can see why guys are pi$$ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 azztech; (I like the handle), Re "I thought I heard for sure a "take it or leave it" message in a post out there." You did. Justice Farley said as much last week when he told the company to come to the table with what they needed, not what they wanted. Like I said, our Collective Agreement is complex and can't be just taken apart without affecting the whole. So some work had to be done as per the comments, which, I have to stress, are my own assessments as to what was/is happening, and not others'. Cheers, Don PS. I have comments which I will hold in reserve until this is all over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AME Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Don I met a gentleman here in Mojave who is currently working on some software for FBW A/C to help mitigate PIO (Pilot induced ossilations SP?) and while talking to him I thought of the FOQA program you were working on and was wondering if this is something you would be interested in? If you email me and I'll get somemore info for you Brett brettf2000@hotmail.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Brett; Yes, I'd be interested, thank you. As of yesterday, to my certain knowledge, FOQA is proceeding at Air Canada, notwithstanding present circumstances. There are the obvious safety implications which the program brings, but there is an increasing awareness of how much money can be saved in in-situ diagnostic work which can be available through FOQA programs. Certainly, development of the program has been slowed down by events but it is proceeding. Interesting on the PIO...the Airbus of course deals with this beautifully through C* laws (Normal, Alternate, Direct and variations on those themes in short-term regimes such as landing, or in the rare unusual attitudes case). donandfran_hudson@telus.net Cheers Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest croupier Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 Well, the answer is simple. It hurts a lot more to reduce 10% from a $40.000 income than 20% from $100.000/$200.000. Do the math. There is a basic income requirement for reasonable living. Even at a 20% reduction rate the pilot’s income would still be 2 to 4 times higher than the average wage at AC. I am one of "these people" Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vsplat Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 Air Canada Flat Salary 2 years for F/O, 3 years for Relief Pilots runs from 40 to 50K. After that, RJ F/O formula pay is often LESS than flat salary. 20% less than that is less than you will have after your sacrifice. In some cases the proposed 12 year F/O rate will be less than the baggage handlers make, by a fair margin. If the information I have seen is anywhere close to accurate, the cuts due to equipment re-classification, before the reduction, will result in pay losses exceeding 40 percent for a large chunk of the pilot population. In the case of a $100k f/O now, the cuts would take them to approx $50K, plus further reductions to fund pension shortfalls. The company is proposing to take hundreds of the pilots to wages less than they will make at Home Depot, with attendant effects on their UI, until they are laid off, now eligible for even less. To smugly dismiss the situation of your fellow employees as "2 to 4 times" anyone's income is, quite frankly, ignorant and offensive. Out of respect for your colleagues, at least get the facts straight before you pick a rock. Just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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