Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon met both the company and the union on Thursday. Both sides are still far apart on the question of wages.
MacKinnon has broad powers to tackle disputes and last month intervened within 24 hours to end a stoppage at the country’s two largest railway companies, Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railway.
Air Canada says this set a precedent. But while Ottawa has intervened several times in labor disputes over the last few decades, it has only done so after stoppages have begun, not before.
“We are not going to interfere, we are not going to take action before it really becomes very clear that there is no goodwill at the negotiating table,” said Trudeau.
The Business Council of Canada, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a joint statement on Friday calling on Ottawa to intervene to prevent a strike before it began.
That might be a first.
The government has been intervening in behalf of and propping up Air Canada for longer than I’ve been alive, regardless of which party happens to be in office.
we are not going to take action before it really becomes very clear that there is no goodwill at the negotiating table
This feels like a promise that they’ll step in as soon as its clear an actual strike will happen. All Air Canada has to do is refuse to compromise and the government will fix it for them.
The pilots have them by the balls though. Thanks to COVID schenanigans there is a demand in the US for pilots that are easily paid well above what Air Canada pilots get atm. Government steps in and pilots will migrate south en masse.
IMO Trudeau is putting pressure on AC to get this settled ASAP because they are all F’d if they dare play hardball.
Thank goodness for that. Finally something good came out of COVID. Fingers crossed, and here’s hoping that the pilots get the pay raises and etc that they clearly deserve, either way.
Another good thing that came out of covid: yours truly got laid off from retail/sales/customer service after ten years, giving him the first time off in ages to reflect on how long he’d been doing it and that he was still getting paid minimum wage. His time, experience and work was worthless. So he went back to college, worked hard on an IT degree and now a little under a year after graduation he’s got a great job in cybersecurity for municipal government.
It might not mean anything to you it its a big silver lining to having basically completely missed 3 years of my life thanks to covid. But yeah, fuck covid.
Happy to hear that things worked out for you in the end!
Knowing something in someone’s life worked out - that actually does have a lot of meaning for me.
I just wanted something to show for my time at the end of lockdown. The first month of lockdown was a lovely staycation, but by month two I was ready to do something. People were picking up hobbies and getting I to exercise and whatnow, but I wanted a significant accomplishment, I wanted to get my life together. I was still living at home (24 but couldn’t afford my own place) with my mother, I’d struggled with school before, never being much of an academic success.
But it wasn’t lost on me that for the first and basically only time in my life I could go to school, get paid while doing so (Say what you will, CERB was huge for peace of mind), and I could be utterly ironclad I wasn’t missing out on anything while working on my classes. I felt I couldn’t waste the opportunity. I guess something about the change in circumstances worked because i did better than ever before grades wise.
I always think about this when people say Universal Basic Income wouldn’t work, because people are naturally driven to do things and want better for themselves. We had only a glimmer of it, but it was enough to transform my life forever.
Anyways, ramble over. I’m glad my story could help brighten your day :)
Yeah.
Of course they’re not interfering. The last time they did that with the railway, it cost them their supply and confidence deal with the NDP. If they do it again, do they think the Cons and the NDP will hold back on a confidence vote?
Is your government really worth whatever you’re personally getting from industry CEOs?
For a while now CN and CPK have had alternating contract negotiation years so they wouldn’t be on strike at the same time.
Last year when it was CN’s turn they decided to defer negotiations for a year.
This is ALL on them, and the fuck the gov’t should jump in because management couldn’t get off their lazy asses and take care of business.
Management is a parasite class. Produce nothing, extract value from people, claim that value would not exist without them.
You’ve got to keep the airlines running, though. How could we burn such enormous amounts of fossil fuels for ever and ever without them?
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He has no compelling reason to do so. The railroad lockout put our entire economy and future health in jeopardy - it was a deliberate choice by the two corporations who coordinated it to threaten absolute scorched earth in Canada.
Airlines are not the vector for anything like that much of our economy. Lots of pain but not a deathblow.
