WestJet Airlines maintenance technicians strike ahead of long weekend

(Reuters) – Aircraft maintenance technicians and other technical operations employees at Canadian carrier WestJet Airlines began a strike on Friday at the start of a long weekend after negotiations failed to reach agreement on pay and working conditions.

WestJet expressed its outrage over the strike on the weekend of Canada Day, one of the country’s most important holidays, and announced that the union would be held “100 percent responsible for the unnecessary stress and costs it caused.”

Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan tried to avert the strike on Thursday after WestJet began cancelling its flights. He instructed the Canadian Council of Trade and Industry to order final and binding arbitration in the dispute.

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) defended the strike in a statement on Friday, saying O’Regan’s order made no mention of “the fundamental right of workers to strike” guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and therefore “the constitutional right of AMFA members to strike must prevail.”

The union said it announced a strike on June 18 after 97 percent of its members voted against a tentative wage agreement negotiated in May, but negotiators returned to the bargaining table two days later.

That round also failed, and the union issued a second strike notice, after which workers walked off the job at 7:30 p.m. ET (11:30 p.m. GMT), AMFA said.

Calgary-based airline WestJet, which is backed by Onex Corp and competes with Air Canada, said severe travel disruptions were expected if the strike was not ended immediately.

The airline said it is actively taking measures to minimize flight disruptions, including calling on the Canadian government to intervene immediately.

AMFA said the airline told the union it would not participate in further collective bargaining in Toronto, citing government-ordered arbitration. The airline also rejected a request to continue collective bargaining in Calgary next week, the union said.

The union said its negotiating committee was ready to continue talks with the airline, adding that wage negotiations could resume over the weekend and next week.

(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina and Aatreyee Dasgupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid, William Mallard and Himani Sarkar)