To CAW Members at Air Canada

We want to thank the thousands of CAW members at Air Canada who attended the more than 30 ratification meetings we held across the country. It was an opportunity to hear loud and clear the many concerns and challenges you are facing in the workplace. Frustration over years of concessions, obscene corporate compensation and bleak predictions for the future has left people stressed and angry. Much outrage was directed at the financial gymnastics of Air Canada that have rewarded Robert Milton, executives and investors but wholly denied hard-working employees their share of the progress.

We also heard that there were a number of communications failures at both the national and local level in keeping you abreast of recent developments in collective bargaining at Air Canada. Many of you also voiced the need to drastically strengthen the connection so that each member, regardless of workplace, job or status, can feel better represented at the bargaining table come this summer when our contract expires (May 31, 2009).

The Bargaining Committee had a difficult decision to make. Economic indicators convinced us that early bargaining may have been a better strategy than gambling on stability in May 2009. Going into negotiations we had a number of objectives to improve job security and the work lives of CAW members. Securing contract work was a key element of our bargaining agenda. We also wanted to offer Air Canada employees at Aeroplan a transition period to decide their future as well as the opportunity to receive additional travel passes from Air Canada. We were able to make improvements in these areas but clearly not enough to satisfy the expectations of our members.

We were concerned about the state of the Air Canada pension plan at a time when many plans are facing huge losses due to the global financial crisis. We were pleased to secure the defined benefit pension plan and made modest improvements to our wages.

Most members across the country had higher expectations than were met by this agreement. You have voted and turned down the contract by a vote of 78%.

While many of the ratification meetings were difficult, one challenge arose with great clarity – that the union not allow Air Canada to continue to bully its workers, cut back services and undermine job security for our members. In the coming weeks, the CAW will be bringing together workplace representatives from across the country where we will strategize on issues facing our members. A list of priorities will be developed after consultation with the membership at a new round of proposal meetings. Your attendance is necessary so your voices can be heard.

We will also be holding strike votes and forming strike committees, so that everyone will be prepared to take on this employer.

We will be highlighting Air Canada’s obvious accountability gap – where the company has been allowed to sell off the profitable sections of the business and leave the core section (and its workers) to flounder. Air Canada employees cannot be expected to bear the brunt of poor executive decisions, as we have in the past.

Again thank you for your tremendous participation during these recent meetings. We will work hard to join with the entire membership to meet your expectations going forward.



In solidarity,


Leslie Dias
President
CAW Local 2002
Ken Lewenza
National President
CAW-Canada