TORONTO– Canada’s second largest airline, Westjetsaid it canceled 407 flights affecting 49,000 passengers after the maintenance workers union announced its strike.
The Fraternal Aircraft Mechanics Association said its members started attacking on friday night because the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union” made it inevitable.
The surprise strike affecting domestic and international flights came after the federal government issued a binding arbitration ministerial order on Thursday. This followed two weeks of turbulent discussions with the union over a new agreement.
WestJet said it will continue to park planes through Sunday during the long weekend that culminates with Canada Day on Monday. The airline has about 200 planes and says they will operate about 30 on Sunday night.
The airline’s chief executive, Alexis von Hoensbroech, laid the blame for the situation squarely on what he called a “rogue US union” that was trying to make inroads in Canada.
Von Hoensbroech said that, as far as the airline was concerned, negotiations with the union came to an end once the government referred the dispute to binding arbitration.
“This makes a strike totally absurd because the reason you actually go on strike is because you need to put pressure on the negotiating table,” he said. “If there is no negotiating table it makes no sense, there should be no strike.”
He added that the union had rejected a contract offer that would have made the airline’s mechanics “the highest paid in the country.”
In an update to its membership, the union bargaining committee referenced a Canadian Industrial Relations Board order that does not explicitly prohibit any strikes or lockouts while the tribunal conducts arbitration.
Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance engineer who picketed Saturday at Terminal 3 at Toronto Pearson International Airport, said the strike is an attempt to force the airline to return to “respectful negotiation.”
McVeigh said the union regrets any inconvenience caused to passengers.
“However, the reason they (passengers) possibly missed a flight or had to cancel is because WestJet is not respectfully coming to the table and negotiating,” he said along with about 20 others on the picket line.
“We take on a lot of responsibilities and we would just like to be valued financially,” he said.
At Pearson, WestJet passengers Samin Sahan and Samee Jan said they had planned to leave Saturday with family members on a trip to Calgary that had been planned to last six to eight months.
Sahan said they had received emails earlier that day informing them that their flight had been rescheduled for Monday, but they went to the terminal anyway. He said his efforts to seek clarification, combined with the strike, had left his travel plans up in the air.
“This inaction is hurting a lot of people, their own business and their customers, who will probably never be their customers again,” Sahan said.
Jan called the situation “sad.”
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