TORONTO (AP) — Canada’s second-largest airline, WestJetsaid it had canceled 407 flights affecting 49,000 passengers after the maintenance workers’ union announced it was on strike.
The Fraternal Association of Aircraft Mechanics said its members started striking on Friday evening because the airline’s “reluctance to negotiate with the union” made the decision inevitable.
The surprise strike that affected domestic and international flights came after the federal government issued a ministerial order Thursday calling for binding arbitration. It follows two weeks of tumultuous talks with the union over a new deal.
WestJet said it will continue to park planes through Sunday for the long weekend that culminates in Canada Day on Monday. The airline has about 200 planes and says it will operate about 30 by Sunday night.
The airline’s CEO, Alexis von Hoensbroech, placed the blame squarely on what he called a “rogue union from the United States” trying to establish itself in Canada.
Von Hoensbroech said that as far as the airline is concerned, negotiations with the union ended once the government submitted the dispute to binding arbitration.
“It makes a strike totally absurd because the reason you strike is because you have to put pressure on the bargaining table,” he said. “If there is no bargaining table, it makes no sense, there should be no strike.”
He said the union rejected a contract offer that would have made the airline’s mechanics the “highest paid in the country.”
In an update to its members, the union negotiating committee referred to an order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board that does not explicitly prohibit any strike or lockout when the court undertakes arbitration.
Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance engineer who picketed Saturday at Terminal 3 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, said the strike was an attempt to force the airline to return to “respectful negotiation “.
McVeigh said the union regretted any inconvenience caused to passengers.
“However, the reason they (passengers) may have missed a flight or had to cancel is because WestJet is not respectfully sitting at the table and negotiating,” he said alongside around twenty other people on the picket line.
“We take on a lot of responsibility and we would just like to be appreciated financially,” he said.
At Pearson Airport, WestJet passengers Samin Sahan and Samee Jan said they planned to leave Saturday with extended family members for a trip to Calgary that was scheduled for six to eight months.
Sahan said they received emails earlier in the day telling them their flight had been rescheduled for Monday, but they went to the terminal anyway. He said their efforts to seek clarification, combined with the strike, had left their travel plans on hold.
“This inaction is hurting a lot of people, their own businesses and their customers who will probably never be their customers again,” Sahan said.
Jan called the situation “sad.”
News Source : apnews.com
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