Air Canada says employees returning to work

Air Canada said its groundcrew employees in both Toronto and Montreal were returning to work Friday morning after a wildcat work stoppage that led to dozens of flight delays and cancellations.

Airline spokeswoman Isabelle Arthur told Postmedia News in an email that an arbitrator had issued an injunction, bringing an end to the job action.

Bill Trbovich, spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), said the parties agreed to end the action on the condition the striking workers would not receive any penalties or fines, and the three suspended employees and 37 Air Canada staff that were subsequently fired afterward are reinstated immediately.

At about 10 p.m. local time Thursday, about 150 ground crew workers walked off the job in Toronto. By Friday morning, the labour action had spread to Montreal.

Air Canada employees at the Quebec City airport also went back to work after having walked of the job earlier Friday to support their colleagues.

Quebec City airport authority spokesman said flights were slowly resuming.

No Air Canada flights landed on the Quebec City tarmac nor left the airport between 8 and 10:30 a.m. local time Friday.

The job action came after the federal government moved earlier this month to prevent a work stoppage at the country's biggest airline, passing legislation to block legal strikes or lockouts.

But on Friday, the travel disruptions apparently feared by the government were taking place nonetheless.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said Friday that the wildcat action had a "significant impact" on the airline's operations in the affected cities.

"We are doing everything we can to get our operation back to normal," Fitzpatrick said.

"We'll see if the protesting employees respect (the injunction)."

He said Air Canada passengers should check ahead on their status of their flight and said any flights that were cancelled can be re-booked at no cost.

"We really appreciate how important it is to our customers that they get to travel on time when they want to," he said. "This is obviously very frustrating for them."

At least 60 Air Canada flights out of Toronto's Pearson International Airport, and 30 out of Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had been cancelled or delayed, according to the airports' websites.

Steve Kent, the chief commissioner of Scouts Canada, said he, his wife and infant son were trying to get to Houston from Newfoundland, but had to turn back after an ordeal that left his family stranded in Toronto overnight.

"Two delays last night, eventually made it to Toronto, sat on runway, then no bags," he said in an email to Postmedia News. "Two hours sleep.

"Found bags downstairs this morning. Houston flight cancelled. Now trying to get back home. Air Canada staff have been very helpful. We may fly at lunchtime, but I'm not optimistic."

Reaction online was less sympathetic to the airline and its workers.

"Slowly but surely Air Canada is sucking the life out of me with each flight I take with them," one person wrote on Twitter, adding the hashtag "aircanadasucks."

Added another user: "Keep it up, unionfolk. You'll destroy your own protection walls eventually."

Peel Regional Police in Ontario got a call about the strike Thursday night and arrived to find about 150 workers gathered at the Pearson airport, said Const. Fiona Thivierge.

The workers were "mostly milling about," she said, noting that it was a peaceful demonstration that had already started to disperse.

"It looks more impromptu than anything else," Thivierge said.

"They're yelling and chanting and stuff, but there are no signs and they're not disrupting the flow, which is what we were most concerned with."

Management was on scene, Thivierge said.

On March 13, legislation passed the House of Commons preventing the airline from locking out pilots and blocking any legal strikes from members of its machinists union. Bill C-33, which passed by a vote of 155-124, addresses about 8,600 mechanics, baggage handlers and other ground crew, along with about 3,000 pilots.

The bill passed the Senate two days later.

Last Sunday, Air Canada said it had asked the government's labour relations board to intervene after an unusually large number of pilots called in sick on a busy spring-break weekend, contributing to numerous flight cancellations.

At that time, Queen's University industrial relations professor George C.B. Smith told Postmedia News the disruptions come as no surprise, given the government's imposition of a resolution.

"There's a huge trust that traditionally exists between employers and employees and when that trust is broken, this is one of the potential outcomes."

Smith, a former director of employee relations for Air Canada, told Postmedia News, "This is the part that (Labour Minister Lisa) Raitt doesn't understand. And this is the part that the Harper government doesn't understand, is that you can superficially get this off the table and you can sweep it away, but there some issues that have to be dealt with. And these employees are not going to accept the way this has been dealt with."

With files from Chantal Mack, Derek Abma, Financial Post and Montreal Gazette

nstechyson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/Natstechyson

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Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F238/~3/OGKZog89PTY/story.html

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