On Friday evening, WestJet aircraft mechanics went on a surprise strike, threatening to disrupt flight connections for thousands of travellers at the start of the long Canada Day weekend.
Canadians should expect “severe travel disruptions” if the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) strike is not ended, WestJet said in a press release.
The abrupt industrial action by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) comes a day after WestJet expressed relief at averting a work stoppage thanks to a ministerial order for binding mediation on Thursday and after two weeks of tumultuous disputes with the union.
The country’s second-largest airline has again called for immediate intervention by the federal labour minister and the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
“We are extremely outraged by these actions and will hold AMFA 100 percent accountable for the unnecessary stress and costs they have caused,” said Diederik Pen, President of WestJet Airlines, in a press release.
The union said in a statement that its roughly 680 WestJet workers walked off the job at 5:30 p.m. MDT, arguing that the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union made the strike inevitable.”
However, WestJet stated that a future collective agreement is currently in the hands of the country’s labor court, so a strike would have no influence on the union and would amount to “pure retaliation.”
Earlier this month, mechanics overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal with the Calgary-based airline. WestJet then asked the government to intervene, leading to two 72-hour strike notices by the union – the first of which was lifted last week.
Shortly before Friday’s deadline, Employment Minister Seamus O’Regan ordered the airline and the union to enter binding arbitration on Thursday, apparently to avoid a work stoppage that would have disrupted plans for up to 250,000 passengers on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
On Thursday evening, both WestJet and the union announced that they would comply with the order; a strike was apparently out of the question.
“AMFA has confirmed that they will comply with the directive. With this in mind, there will be no strike or lockout and the airline will no longer cancel flights,” WestJet said on Thursday.
Therefore, Friday evening’s withdrawal came as an even greater shock to executives and travelers.
“Is my flight on Sunday in danger?” asked Andrew Wheatley of Edmonton in a social media post.
“I support a union’s right to strike, as long as it is legal. And hopefully they get a good result. But at the same time, I have to be at work on Monday morning,” he added in a message.
No further flights were cancelled on Friday evening, WestJet spokeswoman Morgan Bell clarified in an email. But weekend flights have been cancelled since midnight because mechanics are needed daily to inspect and repair the planes.
Bell said there was “no threat to the safety of our operations.”
In an update to members, the union’s negotiating committee referred to the constitutional protection of collective action.
It also referred to an order of the Industry and Commerce Committee that does not explicitly prohibit strikes and lockouts because the court is conducting arbitration proceedings under O’Regan’s instructions.
“The board is of the opinion that referring the matter to the ministry does not result in a suspension of the right to strike or lockout,” the court wrote on Thursday.
The union committee insisted that the Minister of Labour had “remained silent on the matter”.
“Since there was no indication that the board would withdraw AMFA’s strike notice, AMFA instructed its members to cease all work,” it said.
Tensions between the two sides had already escalated to breaking point last month.
The strike announcements have forced WestJet to cancel around 70 flights since June 20, affecting around 10,000 passengers and potentially costing the company millions of dollars. The airline’s decision to concentrate its 180-aircraft fleet was designed to avoid abandoning planes at distant locations and leaving passengers and crew stranded in the event of a work stoppage.
As negotiations over the contract dragged on this week in a windowless conference room at a hotel near Toronto Pearson Airport, the tone of statements from both sides became increasingly harsh.
The union’s wage demands indicated that it had not acted in good faith and its public statements contained “inflammatory” and “offensive” elements, according to an affidavit from a WestJet lawyer.
In a letter to a senior WestJet manager on Friday, national union president Bret Oestreich claimed that the airline had acted “unlawfully in this context” by refusing to negotiate further.
Just over a year ago, the airline found itself in a similar situation after about 1,800 pilots threatened to quit.
WestJet averted a strike by reaching a last-minute agreement in the early hours of a long May weekend, but it cancelled more than 230 flights and disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 28, 2024.
Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press
