TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE IAMAW
WORKING AT AIR CANADA AND AVEOS, TECHNICAL OPERATIONS – YUL
The Future of the EMC
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
For several weeks now, certain signs were leading us to believe that Aveos no longer wanted to perform the maintenance of the CF34-10 engines of Embraer’s fleet. These signs are now facts. Here is a summary of last week’s events :
At the beginning of the week, I learned that Bob Madigan, Aveos’s Vice-President and General Manager, Engine Solutions, had met with certain employees in the EMC to explain to them that the company would not make the investments enabling it to perform the maintenance work on these engines. I asked Aveos for an explanation and have not yet received an answer.
At the end of the week, in order to finalize its strategy, Air Canada sent a notice to the Union to subcontract the overhaul of a CF34-10 engine. The reason put forward: Aveos does not have the required tooling and test cell to do the overhaul.
The picture is now coming into focus: Aveos does not seem to want to commit itself to developing a future for the EMC.
Yet, the message these two companies have been sending us in the last two years was quite different:
- On the one side, during presentations, Aveos explained to us that the future of the EMC did not depend on the overhaul of Boeing 777 engines but rather on the overhaul of CF34-10 engines and that a business plan was being developed and would be implemented before the arrival of the first engine.
- On the other hand, during transition meetings, Air Canada guaranteed us that the maintenance work on its engines would be given to Aveos until 2018.
Everything seems to indicate that Air Canada and Aveos had planned their move well in advance and that these messages were simply intended to help the companies avoid all obstacles as they worked through the steps of the transition. Not content with selling its employees to Aveos and refusing to guarantee a future for its Heavy Maintenance employees, Air Canada would now like us to see that there is no future for the EMC.
In short, the sole purpose of selling Air Canada’s maintenance is to ensure the disappearance of this maintenance work in Canada.
I have advised Air Canada that I refuse its subcontract notice and that Aveos will have to formally guarantee our members that it will make the required investments to perform the maintenance of the CF34-10 engine.
This work belongs to us.
I will keep you informed of developments on this matter.
In solidarity,
Jean Poirier
General Chairperson, Eastern Region
