Winter Shift Bid Update
The company has issued a bulletin with their version of events regarding the winter shift bid. To be clear, the following is what has transpired.
The shift bid committee met with the company on September 20th to try to reach an agreement on the best bid possible. The company indicated that there was going to be a significant reduction of bid lines as opposed to last winter’s bid. The Union objected to this as unreasonable and tried to engage in discussions with the company. The company refused, saying manpower requirements were the company’s, and only the company’s decision. The collective agreement states in article 10.01.03.01.01 “In dealing with the question of work schedules, it is the responsibility of the company to establish the manpower needs at various periods. It is then incumbent on both parties to jointly review all aspects of the situation to arrive at a work schedule to meet the required distribution of staff.”
On Monday September 26th The Shop Committee asked for a meeting with GM Peter Kemp. We informed Peter that we were willing to sit down and negotiate a bid both sides could live with and asked him to intervene. Mr. Kemp informed us he would be talking to his manpower people and get back to us. When Peter called a couple hours later, he informed us that the company was unwilling to even discuss the distribution of staff as per the collective agreement. There has been no contact with the company since.
Once an impasse is reached, the collective agreement stipulates that the matter should be raised to the 3rd level, that is, the General Chairperson and Labour Relations. If this does not result in an agreement, then the matter would go to arbitration for resolution.
The company has posted a bulletin that they intend to circumvent the collective agreement and release a shift bid THE UNION HAS NOT AGREED TO! The company somehow believes collective agreement applies to you but not to them.
You have to ask yourself if, as the company states in their bulletin, that they are hiring LSA’s, CSA’s and both full and part time S/A’s to prepare for the winter schedule, WHY slash the number of bid lines. What the company won’t tell you is what they told us, the more people they have on relief; the easier it is to give R.O. and LOA’s. If as the company states in their bulletin they are “willing and interested in working with the local committee in coming up with the best shift bids for Toronto Airport” WHY not negotiate with us.
You must all remember how the company told us when things improved we’d all share in the prosperity. Oh, that’s right we did, we each got $500.00 and managers each got tens of thousands of $$. Judge Farley told us he would make sure our work environment improved and we would have a better relationship will management, well has it improved?
Over the past 10 years we have all made sacrifices to make this airline viable. We gave up pay, vacation, paid lunch, overtime rates, etc. We were told when the airline recovered we would all benefit, have you? One of the things that should be improving is our shifts considering the amount of people retiring and the number of people being fired in the past couple years.
The Union does not believe the company has fulfilled their contractual obligations with regards to the shift bid process. The Union asked for a negotiated settlement, the company refused to negotiate! Under these circumstances THE UNION ADVISES YOU NOT TO ASSIST THE COMPANY in their attempt to ram through a shift bid before the process in the collective agreement has been exhausted, WE ASK YOU NOT TO BID!
IN SOLIDARITY,
Derek Morgan Brad Gomes
Frank Morgani Vic Seebalak
