Air Canada Wins CUPE Grievance re B2 Passes For Pilots

[Victory]

No offense but the pilots could go down load the bags, take the tickets, fuel the plane, and fly it to the destination. I know because I've done all that. A lot.

[atphat]

No offense but the pilots could go down load the bags, take the tickets, fuel the plane, and fly it to the destination. I know because I've done all that. A lot.

Lol. Truth

[nightbird]

Don't give management any ideas. Lol

[Sinister]

I call bullshit.

Oh, yah? Test me. I'd be willing to bet that I was a pilot for AC before you were born. In the days of CALPA, long before any of the mergers and consolidations. Before centralized crew scheduling, and before the F/A's got their first "Me Too" to the pilot contract ("per diem" expenses were raised to be the same as those of the pilots). When F/A's were called stewardesses, and only males were hired as "Pursers."

Just because I haven't participated on this forum before doesn't mean that I am not fully aware of this airline's history and of the implications of these most recent "deals".

I still stand by my post—providing separate classes of benefits to the different employee groups serves only to divide the employee groups as a whole, and in the long run is counterproductive to the organization's long-term health.

[Sinister]

No offense but the pilots could go down load the bags, take the tickets, fuel the plane, and fly it to the destination. I know because I've done all that. A lot.

Correct. But that's not the issue. The airline works because everyone contributes—small cogs, big cogs—the only way it works really well is when all the cogs are functioning together, without stress.

It is arguable that some of the members' contribution is more valuable than the contribution of others. That is confirmed in the wage structure. But for benefits such as personal travel, there is no equivalent tie. Everyone on the team is, or should be, treated equally. And to keep harmony, there should be a perception of equality.

[altiplano]

I'd be willing to bet that I was a pilot for AC before you were born.

If you were an AC pilot before I was born then it's unlikely you would be a pilot here today. Maybe one of those top few... How many years does PD have?

Just because I haven't participated on this forum before doesn't mean that I am not fully aware of this airline's history and of the implications of these most recent "deals".

Your disdain for your junior colleagues and RPs is what is most disappointing in your post. Pilots are joining with 20, 30, or even more years in the business, RCAF, AC Express, Heavy Jets, Northern Ops, more... A 2 year RP is really a 22 year pilot - a Captain in previous roles whether F18 or F28 - and yes, they should ride ahead of a 3rd year 21 year old FA or a 50th year 70 year old FA. I'm just disappointed it's only 3 times a year. I'm disappointed Engineers aren't with us in the B1s... but they've got their own problems with the IAM...

You still haven't answered to the fact that FAs happily took their own higher seniority and no service charges on their own deal. Rank hypocrisy - and you advocate for them, against us?

Your opinions are irrelevant anyway. An agreed upon, competent arbitrator has already sided with AC's choice in this matter.

[RVR6000]

Looks like the Yammer junkies have moved on to Avcanada. Being shut-down by the Director of HR, losing the greivience wasn’t enough. Reality check buddy, different job different perks.

[TheStig]

No offense but the pilots could go down load the bags, take the tickets, fuel the plane, and fly it to the destination. I know because I've done all that. A lot.

Correct. But that's not the issue. The airline works because everyone contributes—small cogs, big cogs—the only way it works really well is when all the cogs are functioning together, without stress.

It is arguable that some of the members' contribution is more valuable than the contribution of others. That is confirmed in the wage structure. But for benefits such as personal travel, there is no equivalent tie. Everyone on the team is, or should be, treated equally. And to keep harmony, there should be a perception of equality.

I gather you’re a retired pilot and dislike both the C1 and B1 passes? I would too, but if in fact you are no longer flying for the airline, your argument hurts your position, as retirees no longer play a role as a cog in the wheel.

[altiplano]

I gather you’re a retired pilot and dislike both the C1 and B1 passes? I would too, but if in fact you are no longer flying for the airline, your argument hurts your position, as retirees no longer play a role as a cog in the wheel.

At many carriers, if not most carriers, certainly the big US ones... active employees go ahead of retirees.
That should be the next pass change.

I'm sure retirees will understand, you know... I'm just too busy doing my part as a cog, than to get bumped by a 40 year seniority retired Office Worker... it takes active employees to make this machine go and make sure there's a successful company to keep the pension cheques, benefits, and passes going for retirees. I'm sure they understand.

[infiniteregulus]

Wow retirees bump current employees? How on earth does that fly? Is there a retiree union as well, casting votes for current benefits offered?

[groundpilot]

Wow retirees bump current employees? How on earth does that fly? Is there a retiree union as well, casting votes for current benefits offered?

That is correct.

As a commuter going to work, to make the airline money so it can continue to operate, I get bumped by a retiree going to see his kid.

And that retiree probably has a +30yrs Defined Benefit plan pension of well into 6 figures but needs to save money with standby passes to trump the employees who can’t afford to live in Toronto / Vancouver on 4 years flat pay.

It is what it is, I guess

[altiplano]

Best part is there is a group of them preparing to sue us for "marginalising their benefits"

Air Canada's "Free & Reduced Rate Transportation Policy has been in effect for over 65 years.

In the Employee Introductory Handbook we received upon becoming permanent it clearly states on the first page,

" Your employee benefits are designed to contribute to your total well-being and that of your family"

The Travel Privileges we were given are a benefit of employment. It is a privilege to use them and the company went into great detail in the Travel Privileges section.

Boarding Sequence: The designated priority ( A or C ) is given in accordance with your Company employment category. The Sequence of boarding is based on your Company Service Date or ( DOJ ) which is clearly indicated on your ID & Travel Card.

The company has embarked on a procedure of "divide and conquer" with the negotiation of the ACPA 10 year contract. Along with the many other items that were negotiated, Air Canada offered special super seniority passes to their members. These are identified as B1 passes.

In effect pilots and their families, friends and partners are boarded prior to anyone else.

The company then followed this up offering other groups of employees in different Unions special passes but always below that of the B1 passes.

The Company now had all Union groups negotiating for these passes on the "me too principle"

Air Canada were well aware of the earlier award by Harvey Frumkin in 1994 where he ruled that the Free & Reduced Rate Travel were "Non-Negotiable."

Mr. Frumkin also made it clear that the company could not discriminate against one employee for the benefit of another employee.

The company has been politely telling anyone who cares to listen that these were a gift to ACPA for signing a 10 year contact. I asked their lawyer in Toronto on June 16, 2017 what part of the word, "NEGOTIATIONS" the Company did not understand? I got no answer.

We can say nothing and accept this and go on grumbling

OR,

we can challenge the Company on this and have our say in a court of competent jurisdiction.

We cannot do this without the co-operation of all of us. In numbers there is strength.

ASK YOURSELF

How many years did we put into Air Canada?

How many times were we asked to work harder for less?

How many sacrifices did we personally make to see Air Canada become the best airline in the world?

To those of you who are still working and soon to retire. You need to to get on board now and be heard. Please stand with us and bring back "SENIORITY" to the D.O.J.

HOW TO JOIN
THE CONTRIBUTION FEE IS $50.00

Use the EET - Electronic Email Transfer from your bank account.

Please use the email at the bottom of this page when choosing this method.

Please include your personal email so we can advise you of your deposit.

[infiniteregulus]

Wow retirees bump current employees? How on earth does that fly? Is there a retiree union as well, casting votes for current benefits offered?

That is correct.

As a commuter going to work, to make the airline money so it can continue to operate, I get bumped by a retiree going to see his kid.

And that retiree probably has a +30yrs Defined Benefit plan pension of well into 6 figures but needs to save money with standby passes to trump the employees who can’t afford to live in Toronto / Vancouver on 4 years flat pay.

It is what it is, I guess

Ouch man! I can understand the pension payouts, that's fair, but I just can't comprehend bumping current employees. That's rough! At least put em at the lowest level whatever it is. C6?

[Sharklasers]

Best part is there is a group of them preparing to sue us for "marginalising their benefits"

Air Canada's "Free & Reduced Rate Transportation Policy has been in effect for over 65 years.

In the Employee Introductory Handbook we received upon becoming permanent it clearly states on the first page,

" Your employee benefits are designed to contribute to your total well-being and that of your family"

The Travel Privileges we were given are a benefit of employment. It is a privilege to use them and the company went into great detail in the Travel Privileges section.

Boarding Sequence: The designated priority ( A or C ) is given in accordance with your Company employment category. The Sequence of boarding is based on your Company Service Date or ( DOJ ) which is clearly indicated on your ID & Travel Card.

The company has embarked on a procedure of "divide and conquer" with the negotiation of the ACPA 10 year contract. Along with the many other items that were negotiated, Air Canada offered special super seniority passes to their members. These are identified as B1 passes.

In effect pilots and their families, friends and partners are boarded prior to anyone else.

The company then followed this up offering other groups of employees in different Unions special passes but always below that of the B1 passes.

The Company now had all Union groups negotiating for these passes on the "me too principle"

Air Canada were well aware of the earlier award by Harvey Frumkin in 1994 where he ruled that the Free & Reduced Rate Travel were "Non-Negotiable."

Mr. Frumkin also made it clear that the company could not discriminate against one employee for the benefit of another employee.

The company has been politely telling anyone who cares to listen that these were a gift to ACPA for signing a 10 year contact. I asked their lawyer in Toronto on June 16, 2017 what part of the word, "NEGOTIATIONS" the Company did not understand? I got no answer.

We can say nothing and accept this and go on grumbling

OR,

we can challenge the Company on this and have our say in a court of competent jurisdiction.

We cannot do this without the co-operation of all of us. In numbers there is strength.

ASK YOURSELF

How many years did we put into Air Canada?

How many times were we asked to work harder for less?

How many sacrifices did we personally make to see Air Canada become the best airline in the world?

To those of you who are still working and soon to retire. You need to to get on board now and be heard. Please stand with us and bring back "SENIORITY" to the D.O.J.

HOW TO JOIN
THE CONTRIBUTION FEE IS $50.00

Use the EET - Electronic Email Transfer from your bank account.

Please use the email at the bottom of this page when choosing this method.

Please include your personal email so we can advise you of your deposit.

The guy running it has collected over 100k from retirees sending in $50 a pop and has no accountability nor has anything been done. The pionairs are very suspicious of the situation as well.

[pigboat]

Sinister is entitled to his own opinion.

The simple math is that 99.9% of the pilots think that a pilot, Capt.,F/O or RP should go first for D.H's. SIMPLE fact.

Did the F/As take a 20 % pay cut back in the early 2000;s...................NO.

The training and responsibilities of the Pilots stands on it's own merits. We will never convince the other employee groups of any of this. DON'T waist a minute of your time ever trying!

I am very pleased to see the F/Os and RP's finally given their due.Long. long, overdue. I would gladly trade the three, B1 passes for a 20% pay raise; but alas the Union did not negotiate that.

Have a nice one.

[infiniteregulus]

I'm sure a pay raise would help out a lot more than a few passes for the hundreds of folks commuting into work into the most expensive cities in Canada haha.

[yycflyguy]

Before centralized crew scheduling, and before the F/A's got their first "Me Too" to the pilot contract ("per diem" expenses were raised to be the same as those of the pilots).

The interesting fact here is that FAs receive better per diems today than pilots on the same layover. Why is that? Should ACPA be filing a grievance against CUPE/AC due to selective preference (read: discriminatory practice) to cover the same employee expenses on company business time?

I thought retiree priority degraded to C3 upon retirement date? I didn't know they kept C2 status. Is that correct?

[altiplano]

Before centralized crew scheduling, and before the F/A's got their first "Me Too" to the pilot contract ("per diem" expenses were raised to be the same as those of the pilots).

The interesting fact here is that FAs receive better per diems today than pilots on the same layover. Why is that? Should ACPA be filing a grievance against CUPE/AC due to selective preference (read: discriminatory practice) to cover the same employee expenses on company business time?

I thought retiree priority degraded to C3 upon retirement date? I didn't know they kept C2 status. Is that correct?

My father inlaw retired with C2 plus the JSA passes... maybe some packages are different.

[yycflyguy]

Does it make a difference if they retired from Canadian or AC?

[Sharklasers]

Does it make a difference if they retired from Canadian or AC?

Retired regional pilots that were grandfathered into C2s drop to C3 at retirement,

[Stu Pidasso]

But perception is reality. Try coming back from Barbados, with 25-plus years of seniority, seeing your family seconded to a recent hire and his or her young family, and having to spend another two or three days waiting for an opening. The optics are not pretty. There is a view that management should want to encourage factors that unite the employees as a group, rather than classifying employee groups according to a separate scale of values.

In a perfect world, Sinister, I might almost agree with you. However....and that is a big However.....the company started the B1's long ago. Giving them to almost every non-Union employee, from all the Clip Board Managers to Secretaries. Compound that with the volume of C1's in the system, which the FA's get a bunch, it is almost impossible to travel on a C2 or less.

Plus - the FA's do not pay service charges on their passes.

Contrary to what the Yammer crowd might think, we are not all equal and it is well past time to push back.

[confusedalot]

I guess I had too much jack daniels.

Can someone educate me on the difference of a ''B'' pass as opposed to a ''C'' pass?

I know the C pass thing, was a lowly and useless feeder airplane driver, ohmygosh sitting in the left seat with all of the accountablilty if I even screwed up once on the most minor of issues, but hey I got something called a C4 privilege. lucky me.

Through hard experience, I know that C4 means absolutely nothing...............

I detect that former employees of the royal family have passes that are superior to pretty much everyone?

So once again, what is a ''B'' privilege, as opposed to a ''C'' privilege?

Man.....the privileged in conflict with the have nots......You'd figure we were in 18th century Britain, class system and all, because of almost free travel gifts???

Sad indeed to see this sort of greed. I am retired, but not air canada retired. Just a run of the mill airplane driver. You would usually give respect to retirees for their service, reading this sort of stuff on the internet, really makes you scratch your head.

[Sharklasers]

Edit: Pointless.

[Stu Pidasso]

Wrong assumption. I am a member of ACPA, not CUPE. And my point still stands. As employees entitled to the benefit of passes, yes, we are equal, or at least we should be equals. The more we are divided the less the strength of the group as a whole. Please don't tell me that the family of two-year R/P should displace the family of a 35-year agent who has withered lay-offs, mergers, recessions and bankruptcy simply because the new-hire is something special when it comes to pass travel—that his little cog in the machinery is so much more important than the other cogs in the machinery that enable the big machine to work.

Further to the point, Sinister, is the 2 year RP is likely in his (or her's) early 30's. Invested in excess of $100K in training and Education, spent close to 10 years getting the required credentials to be hired by AC. Conversely the Rampie, Agent or F/A got hired at 18 with a high school diploma and has 15 (or so) years of pass service time before the Pilot even gets hired. If a person gets hired into a Senior Management level, based on their Experience and Education, you can bet they are enjoying a superior pass priority than all of us.

The problem we have is Pilots are Unionized and as such all the other Unions consider us all equal. Personally I Manage a 320 Million (US) dollar Asset every time I go to work, I have no heart ache getting a better pass privilege than the guy loading the bags.

[43S/172E]

No offense but the pilots could go down load the bags, take the tickets, fuel the plane, and fly it to the destination. I know because I've done all that. A lot.

Correct. But that's not the issue. The airline works because everyone contributes—small cogs, big cogs—the only way it works really well is when all the cogs are functioning together, without stress.

It is arguable that some of the members' contribution is more valuable than the contribution of others. That is confirmed in the wage structure. But for benefits such as personal travel, there is no equivalent tie. Everyone on the team is, or should be, treated equally. And to keep harmony, there should be a perception of equality.

Good Afternoon Sinister:
If the company decided to award pilots the "B" level passes that is their right to do so and yes as a retiree as well I whole heartily support this non-monetary perk the group was awarded. The company gave them the perk in recognition for being the first to sign in on a ten year contract. If I was working at the time I would have enjoyed that benefit but as we are both "off" of the property we have absolutely no right to comment or whinge. For the pilot group still working if you get a perk or advantage use it as you deserve it. I am glad I left the property while the age 60 contractual agreement was in place and find retirement allows me to do things that I have really wanted to do (sorry for thread drift)