Flights will go ahead as scheduled in the event of a strike by Air Canada's call centre and airport customer service employees. The union representing the employees has given the airline 72 hour strike notice.
The union representing Air Canada’s call centre and airport customer service employees has notified the airline that they intend to strike if the two sides cannot reach an agreement.
Those employees could walk off the job as soon as 12:01 Tuesday morning.
Air Canada has posted a statement on their website stating that if those workers do hit the picket line flights will go ahead as scheduled.
It also advises passengers on what steps to take to mitigate the effects of a strike on their travel plans.
You can read the full statement here.
Negotiations between the two sides continue.
June 15th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Why is Harper getting involved when everything is going so well. The Airline is not a essential service. You have other airline choices. This proves once again Harper is a union basher. Remember what we have today is because of unions. Don’t be fooled by AC pension concerns. Had they taken the interest and put it back into the funds in the high interest periods instead of paying out dividends or CEO bonus they would not be in this position today.
Early this morning, as we were informed by the CAW that their members were on strike, we put our contingency plan into action.
I am proud to report that our first 24 hours demonstrated the high level of commitment and professionalism we expect from the 22,000 employees who worked together to minimize the impact to our customers.
While there were inevitable challenges throughout the day, our system start up was one of the best in weeks, and there were widespread media reports of a relatively smooth operation under the circumstances. Comments from our customers were generally positive with most reporting virtually unaffected airport experiences. Working together we carried nearly 99,000 customers safely to their destinations with a flight completion rate of over 99.8%!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the 22,000 employees supporting this operation for your contributions to this incredible effort. No matter what your role, your professionalism under the circumstances cannot be underestimated and your commitment to our customers defines our company.
You may have already heard that the government gave notice it will introduce back-to-work legislation. We would prefer that a negotiated contract to the benefit of both parties could be achieved through the normal bargaining process and we’re ready to go back to the table at any time.
In the meantime, I know I can count on everyone to continue to put our customers first.
Duncan Dee