WestJet mechanics go on strike despite government intervention

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After weeks of heated negotiations, WestJet mechanics began a strike Friday evening, defying the intervention of the federal government, which had obliged the airline and the aircraft mechanics to enter into binding arbitration.

WestJet said Friday that the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) had notified the company that the union had begun strike action at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

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The Calgary-based airline expects “serious” travel disruptions if the strike is not ended immediately and says a systematic shutdown of the network is no longer possible.

The strike comes at the start of the busy long Canada Day weekend, the start of the summer travel season.

“Because arbitration has been ordered, a strike has no bearing on the outcome of the arbitration and is therefore purely retaliation by a disappointed union,” said Diedrik Pen, President of WestJet.

“We are extremely outraged by these measures and will hold AMFA 100 percent accountable for the unnecessary stress and costs they have caused.”

WestJet is asking travelers to check the status of their flight before heading to the airport this weekend.

AMFA said employees were eager to return to work, but “yetThe timing for this is entirely in the hands of WestJet management.”

“The (aircraft maintenance technicians) had hoped this action would be unnecessary, but the airline’s unwillingness to negotiate with the union made the strike inevitable,” AMFA wrote in its statement. It said the union was in dialogue with the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) and WestJet to break the impasse.

On Thursday, the federal government instructed the two parties to settle their dispute in binding arbitration. This step almost certainly avoided a work stoppage that would otherwise have led to flight cancellations for hundreds of thousands of travelers.

In a social media post late Thursday, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan said he was invoking his authority under the Canadian Labour Code to break the impasse between the two sides as the clock ticked toward a Friday evening deadline.

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WestJet has asked O’Regan and the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to intervene.

The CIRB may choose not to suspend the right to stop work during the drafting of a contract, but precedent suggests that such an outcome is unlikely.

AMFA first notified the airline of a 72-hour strike on June 17, which forced WestJet to cancel nearly 50 flights last week before both sides agreed to resume negotiations. The second strike came on Tuesday amid tense negotiations over a first collective agreement between WestJet and about 680 maintenance technicians.

Union members overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal earlier this month and resisted WestJet’s request for intervention by the country’s labor court – a request that sparked the union’s first strike threat.

— Files from The Canadian Press

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