CUPE's Deal - FYI

[Guest mareli]

TENTATIVE AGREEMENT REACHED

CUPE’s Air Canada Component, representing 8,300 flight attendants, has reached a tentative agreement with the national carrier. The agreement was reached following a stressful and arduous round of bargaining involving the union, the company, Justice Warren Winkler and the monitor in the CCAA process.

This was an extremely difficult process for everyone involved, but every member of the bargaining committee feels they have done the best job possible with the company potentially facing liquidation.

The bargaining began with Air Canada demanding in excess of $145 million in concessions from flight attendants. We were able to cut that total back to $138 million but it was not achieved without painful setbacks for our members.

The highlights of this three-year agreement are as follows:

Concessions

· 1963 job cuts including closure of the Edmonton base and the loss of 252 positions due to technological change.

· Wage reduction of 7.75%.

· A reduction in vacation time of one week for flight attendants with over six years of service. Vacation credits to be calculated at 2.55 hours per day.

· The company will not be replacing senior people at each base who elect to leave with the VSP program. This is referred to as base balancing.

· Elimination of premiums (excluding draft).

· Increase of Minimum Monthly Limitation (MML) from 75 to 80 hours per month with a possible extension to 85 hours for four months a year.

· Voluntary extension from 85 to 100 hours per month.

· Elimination of family care days.

· The removal of the cleaning and footwear allowances.

· The elimination of ground allowance of $2.00 per pairing.

· Unpaid recurrent training.

· Pay for stat holidays only.

Conditions

· This agreement must be ratified by the members.

· A three-year term until June 30, 2006.

· No changes to the pension plan.

· Eliminating LOU #24, with some exceptions.

· A profit-sharing program.

· Deleting the job security clause.

· The company will pay our negotiation expenses.

· Air Canada will provide correct ROEs to HRDC.

· There will be 2500 VSPs available at $800/month for five years.

· PBS – A seniority-driven preferential bidding system.

· The flight attendant-to-passenger ratio will remain at 1 to 40 (except CRJ).

Ratification meetings will be held across the country and you will be notified of specific dates as soon as possible.

[Guest hewlett]

Pay for stat holidays only? Does that mean the other month or so of vacation is unpaid?

[Guest chiselcharter]

Perhaps it means, if you don't work them you, don't get paid for them.

[Guest mareli]

This Morning, due to a technical fault, the bulletin Answering the Challenge#13 was inadvertently posted on the Component website.

This bulletin contains errors and is not a factual representation of the tentative collective agreement between CUPE and Air Canada nor the status of ongoing negotiations.

As of 12:45 EDT, May 29 an agreement has not yet been finalized.

[Beth]

I bet you it is going to be pretty close to that though!