Will Air Canada pilots strike? Union vote results coming

Air Canada pilots have been voting to decide on whether they will go on strike, and the vote ends Thursday.

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the union representing the pilots, says they are hoping to avoid a work stoppage but are prepared to go on strike if the impasse continues.

The vote would only give the union power to call a strike on behalf of its members and an actual strike is unlikely to start before mid-September.

Several rounds of talks took place between the airline and the union between January and June. At the end of June, however, they entered a 60-day period of federal consultation. In less than two weeks, a 21-day cooling period will begin, ending mid-September.

If an agreement is not reached by then, pilots could go on strike.

An ALPA spokesperson said if members vote for a strike mandate, the union would be empowered under the Canada Labour Code to walk off the job when the cooling-off period ends.

“We want to reach an agreement with Air Canada to avert a strike and although we have made some progress in conciliation, management continues to force us closer to a strike position by not listening to our most pressing needs at the negotiating table regarding fair compensation, respectable retirement benefits, and quality-of-life improvements,” Charlene Hudy, ALPA’s Air Canada master executive council chair, told Global News last week.

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Hudy said while they made headway in the talks between January and June, they had reached an “impasse” with Air Canada on some key issues.

The airline, however, said negotiations are continuing.

“Already, we have reached agreement on several items. We are working actively to reach agreement on the remaining issues with an aim to finalize a deal over the next several weeks,” an Air Canada spokesperson told Global News.

They added that since no action was possible by either side until mid-September, it would be “business as usual” until then, “with Air Canada operating as normal.”

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The negotiations at Air Canada follow a strike at Canada’s other major airline, WestJet, where the mechanics’ union went on strike in July over the Canada Day weekend.

The strike disrupted the travel plans of more than 100,000 travellers.

Barry Prentice, director of the transport institute at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, said in the case of Air Canada, he expects the airline to agree to the union’s demands.

“For the airline to shut down and not have pilots is not an option. So, maybe they will bite the bullet and they will agree to it,” Prentice said.

He said pilots tend to have more negotiations compared with other airline employees in collective bargaining agreements.

“If we look at the pattern in the U.S, they (wage settlements) are pretty substantial,” he said, adding that Canada’s pilot shortage is likely to further swing the negotiations in their favour.

“They’ve got a lot of leverage. Will it end up going to a strike? Hard to say.”