Mandatory Retirement Repeal Passes 2nd Reading in Parliament

[LeadingEdge]

Here's an even bigger crack...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 6S972C.DTL

[Understated]

Does anyone have a link to the decision?

Here it is:

http://www.flypast60.com/Documents/2011CIRB615.pdf

[the original tony]

I'm glad the gov't is stepping in to reslove this grave injustice, forcing such hard working and deserving individuals out in the cold. Imagine that.
Just make sure to vote for this party again so that industrial action ANY union tries to make is blocked. Most people aren't smart enough to speak out of one side of their mouth let alone both. Gov't is good, stop any retiring till death do us part. Gov't is bad, wont let us strike and forces unfair working conditions on us......
So which one is it?
I believe both are bullshit.
So we get crap contracts with no advancement, just what I wanted.

FO for life, or death.

Tony

[Morry Bund]

I'm glad the gov't is stepping in to reslove this grave injustice, forcing such hard working and deserving individuals out in the cold.

Do you know that song on the Country Music stations about the guy gettting kicked out of his house, and then seeing his wife's new boyfriend driving around town in the truck that he used to own? That would hurt, wouldn't it? But what is the difference between that and your own union using your dues to pay for lawyers to assist your employer in its litigation to uphold your termination of employment, especially after the Tribunal and the court has already determined that the provision of your collective agreement on which your termination of employment was based is illegal? It may not be grave injustice, but it is injustice, just the same. At least, that's the way I see the CIRB heading, on this issue.

From my understanding of the earlier decisions regarding DFR, when the legislature took away your right to enter into private agreements with your employer it simultaneously imposed on the union that was given the right to negotiate on your behalf the duty to do so fairly, and not to simply throw the minority members out in the cold. The other unions at Air Canada seem to understand that point. Why doesn't ACPA?

[SilentMajority]

Here's an even bigger crack...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 6S972C.DTL

Whether you are junior, mid-seniority, or senior.......this Bloomberg post should have everyone paying attention to what is going on at our carrier.

With just over $2 Billion in unrestricted cash available...it will not take much to push AC over the edge.

The credit card processors require over $1 Billion to be available at all times. With future pension obligations, rising fuel prices, increased competition from carriers with lower costs....the money that is left can evaporate very quickly.

Look at what has happened at AMR.....it will never be the same carrier again....and who is left for it to merge with....US Airways....heaven forbid.

Most of us have been through at least 1 CCAA filing with this airline (some have been through 3). We should all know by now that what is taken away during this process never returns.

TA1 failure.....FP60....LCC.... DC plans for new hires.......all of these will seem trivial compared to the potential dismantling that this company will face with yet another court ordered restructuring.

We owe it to ourselves....disgruntled juniors and seniors alike.....to do everything in our power to help keep this company healthy and competitive. An imploding Air Canada Legacy dinosaur is a very real possibility.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Here's an even bigger crack...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 6S972C.DTL

Whether you are junior, mid-seniority, or senior.......this Bloomberg post should have everyone paying attention to what is going on at our carrier.

With just over $2 Billion in unrestricted cash available...it will not take much to push AC over the edge.

The credit card processors require over $1 Billion to be available at all times. With future pension obligations, rising fuel prices, increased competition from carriers with lower costs....the money that is left can evaporate very quickly.

Look at what has happened at AMR.....it will never be the same carrier again....and who is left for it to merge with....US Airways....heaven forbid.

Most of us have been through at least 1 CCAA filing with this airline (some have been through 3). We should all know by now that what is taken away during this process never returns.

TA1 failure.....FP60....LCC.... DC plans for new hires.......all of these will seem trivial compared to the potential dismantling that this company will face with yet another court ordered restructuring.

We owe it to ourselves....disgruntled juniors and seniors alike.....to do everything in our power to help keep this company healthy and competitive. An imploding Air Canada Legacy dinosaur is a very real possibility.

The bottom line is simple. If everyone on every Air Canada airplane worked for Nothing the Cost per Seat Mile would still be more than WestJet. Air Crew salaries are not the problem. Management want you to think that the airline will go under if you don't bend over, but the reality is their decisions on how to run the company will decide if Air Canada succeeds or fails. In the meantime you deserve decent WAWACONS

[Rockie]

We owe it to ourselves....disgruntled juniors and seniors alike.....to do everything in our power to help keep this company healthy and competitive. An imploding Air Canada Legacy dinosaur is a very real possibility.

Continuing to give until you work for nothing and have no pension left hides the real problem that will never get fixed as long as we compensate for it.

[duranium]

I'm glad the gov't is stepping in to reslove this grave injustice, forcing such hard working and deserving individuals out in the cold. Imagine that.
Just make sure to vote for this party again so that industrial action ANY union tries to make is blocked. Most people aren't smart enough to speak out of one side of their mouth let alone both. Gov't is good, stop any retiring till death do us part. Gov't is bad, wont let us strike and forces unfair working conditions on us......
So which one is it?
I believe both are bullshit.
So we get crap contracts with no advancement, just what I wanted.

FO for life, or death.

Tony

Perfect example of the me, myself and I generation 'I want, I want, I want.

You could just, very soon, maybe '' want '' yourself out of a job. Start reading the newspapers, you could learn a thing or two. You know how to read a newspaper, I hope ?

That load of bovine yogurt that you allude too with such verve, could be the very same load that is headed, in the next little while, towards your face. Time for a huge reality check. Do yourself a favour, look into it yesterday

[Rockie]

FO for life, or death.

That's your choice I believe. If I'm not mistaken you're senior enough right now to be a Captain. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[duranium]

The bottom line is simple. If everyone on every Air Canada airplane worked for Nothing the Cost per Seat Mile would still be more than WestJet. Air Crew salaries are not the problem. Management want you to think that the airline will go under if you don't bend over, but the reality is their decisions on how to run the company will decide if Air Canada succeeds or fails. In the meantime you deserve decent WAWACONS

When you have 8000+ unqualified workers earning an average of $35000/year, cabin crew earning twice as much as the competition, 2.5 more middle management heads per total working employees than the direct competition, pilots that believe that they are God's gift to Air Canada,do you ever have big problems. Add to that, the directorate of said company working to line their pockets as fast as possible with not so much as one iota of concern for the health of the bottom line.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The bottom line is simple. If everyone on every Air Canada airplane worked for Nothing the Cost per Seat Mile would still be more than WestJet. Air Crew salaries are not the problem. Management want you to think that the airline will go under if you don't bend over, but the reality is their decisions on how to run the company will decide if Air Canada succeeds or fails. In the meantime you deserve decent WAWACONS

When you have 8000+ unqualified workers earning an average of $35000/year, cabin crew earning twice as much as the competition, 2.5 more middle management heads per total working employees than the direct competition, pilots that believe that they are God's gift to Air Canada,do you ever have big problems. Add to that, the directorate of said company working to line their pockets as fast as possible with not so much as one iota of concern for the health of the bottom line.

Except for pilots, AME's and some legal/financial/senior operational managers, pretty much everyone who works for Air Canada could be trained from scratch in six months or less. Sorry if it is not politically correct to say it but it is true. For the quality and experience Air Canada wants, pilot need to have many years of experience and that is worth a lot. WestJet pilots make more than Air Canada pilots and WestJet FA/CSR/ramp personnel make less then Air Canada FA/CSR/ramp personnel because that is what happens when pay is commensurate with the value the employee brings to the company. If Air Canada has a bunch of unskilled emplyees, make skilled employee wages, than that is not the pilot groups problem it is the airline managements problem. The value of a pilots job has not gone down and so why should wages ? I am not ashamed to assert that the least replaceable and most important employee of an airline is the pilot, and he/she should be compensated accordingly.

[accumulous]

The value of a pilots job has not gone down and so why should wages ? I am not ashamed to assert that the least replaceable and most important employee of an airline is the pilot, and he/she should be compensated accordingly.

That’s one of the overriding functional problems with AC pilots. Obviously some of us have no qualms whatsoever about asserting our dominance at the top of the food chain and marking our self-worth as head and shoulders above the rest.

For starters the pilots go absolutely nowhere without Flight Attendants in the back, unless the pilots want to clean the cabins and evacuate the aircraft.

The pilots also don’t park, maintain, fuel, buy and paint the fleet without ground staff and unless the pilots want to smash bags between legs, well, there are a ton of very capable AC employees in those positions as well.

This is the benchmark of the differences between AC and WestJet pilots for example. At AC we’re a product of our own mismanagement and complete lack of leadership which leaves the general cohesiveness of the esprit de corps with nothing but crippling compound fractures to stand on.

There has been no end to the expressed notion that employees other than pilots have relatively less worth in the Company.

Au contraire.

AC wins a lot of national and international service awards, and those types of things are generally brought about in the face to face, person to person contact that happens 24/7 at a big airline. The pilots are slam-clicked behind a steel door while 25,000 other employees nudge up against the customer and make the impression that wins awards. AC pilots could learn a lot by attending charm school for a couple of semesters as far as appreciating the other employees who happen to be on the same team.

The Almighty Holy Pilot Roger RamJet attitude is where our fundamental flaws germinate, and those flaws are arguably partly indicative of the reason why management states that the current model is broken. They’ve likely taken a look at what it would take to de-fracture all the various splinter groups in our little nutcake and get everybody rowing in the same direction. It’s likely impossible on any practical scale. You only have to look at the last round of executive pilot lynchings for a barometer of what's impossible.

Hence the call for things like the LCC. Just give up on the notion of patching a leaderless bunch of fragmentees together and make an LCC. Maybe the suggestion of an LCC is nothing more than a smart wake-up call for a bunch of employees to maybe take some time out from getting their asses sued off everywhere from Civil Court to Parliament and maybe prepare to make something out of the airline for a change.

[What_the?]

ACC... I've got a good doctor I can suggest to get you off those heavy meds.... Or did we spend too much time doing a little something, something in the basement... Oh deary me.

[WhatThe?]

Damn I must be losing my mind....I don't remember saying that?

Far too intelligent for one of my posts!

[accumulous]

ACC... I've got a good doctor I can suggest to get you off those heavy meds.... Or did we spend too much time doing a little something, something in the basement... Oh deary me.

It doesn’t take any medication to see the worth of frontline employees, because they’re winning awards. Walk a mile in the shoes of a top notch ticket agent for a couple of shifts, and see which job you think is easier.

If your doctor is an Opthalmologist, the writing’s on the wall at 20 feet, and it can’t be read with hindsight. This farming business started 30 years ago. This is nothing new, and it’s got legs, long legs. Everybody wound up with Regionals, for decades, really just LCC concepts aren't they, and there have been numerous on-again, off-again attempts to merge the entities back together but it’s always been too late. Whip-saw, see-saw, scope, PG, on and on. We have traditionally been our own worst enemies. The trick is to find that balancing act for preserving the Mainline brand this time around. This could be the breaker. We’ll see soon enough.

[the original tony]

duranium, if there is a generation of "I want" it's the guys that won't leave.
I want to stay, I want everything to stay the same now that I'm in top, I want to
keep my seniority and benefits, without any regard for those behind me.
Sounds just like you said.
Now for ME, I want to feed my family, I want to make a percentage of what those guys made. I don't want to get laid off. Where is greed and where is basic progression?
And I think you have a real unhealthy fascination with yogurt. Not fed properly as a child?
Either way to keep playing this under the guise of discrimination is as old as the pilots themselves.
You like the setup, you don't want to give it up. I get it. Luckily the govt is trying to get out from under a massive cpp/old age pension defecit. This is their way of doing it. People working don't collect pensions. Let's call it discrimination and keep them at it for THEIR benefit.
You guys just came up with excellent timing and the right people in parliament to push it through.

Tony

[Rockie]

How many years in do you have Tony?

[the original tony]

6 years boss.

[Morry Bund]

if there is a generation of "I want" it's the guys that won't leave.
I want to stay, I want everything to stay the same now that I'm in top, I want to
keep my seniority and benefits, without any regard for those behind me.

You guys just came up with excellent timing and the right people in parliament to push it through.

Tony:

Take off your blinders. We had nothing, nothing to do with what is happening in Parliament.

You give us far too much credit, and you shortchange yourself.

Take a cold shower. Open your eyes. Get over it. While you were focussed on the rear view mirror, the world in front of you changed, forever.

There were a few, a very few us here, that five or six years ago told you that today, in December 2011, what you are seeing, was going to happen. Your response? Slay the messenger. Ad hominem. Ad hominem. Ad hominem. It ain’t fair. Yada yada yada. It’s all about greed… ad finitum.

Now, today, in December, 2011, Parliament has passed the legislation to do exactly what we said was going to happen. Your response? Slay the messenger. Ad hominem. Ad hominem. Ad hominem. It ain’t fair. Yada yada yada.

You could have listened then. You could listen now. But no. You still don’t listen. What is your response today? Slay the messenger. Ad hominem. Ad hominem. Ad hominem. Yada yada yada.

Maybe, some day. Next month. Next year. Some day you may realize that you, yes you, had an opportunity to embrace this change, to accept the inevitability of it, and to move on, together with your peers. Rather than to ostracize them and yourself. Maybe you could have joined the others in lighting one small candle.

Or you can have done as you are doing now, sit back and curse the dark.

[the original tony]

No problem. Change was coming. Accept it. Got it now, I fully understand.
There was recent changes to give a bigger tax break for charitable donations. Do you give more?? Recent changes to law make it illegal to speak on a phone in the car, do you still speak on your phone while driving?? Accept it.
You are right, pilots didn't start this trend, but they want to take advantage of it.
Like most, take advantage of the rule changes that work in your favor, ignore the ones that don't.
Just because the rule changes doesn't mean it has to be followed.
Maybe the above law changes pale in comparison to the money you can make by crying discrimination. But in its truest form. They are both changes we must accept.
But only one of these make you more rich. The others take money from you, and the ability to bitch about your retirement while driving.
Call it a dumb comparison, call me dumb, I don't care. Simply put, most law changes are followed at users discretion. Unless they are going to make you more money.


Tony

[Understated]

You guys just came up with excellent timing and the right people in parliament to push it through.

Let me get this straight. For five years or so you were telling us that we were out to lunch. And now because what we told you was going to happen is actually coming to pass you are saying that we are controlling this government's agenda? Ha! You are very funny! Very, very funny!!!

[Understated]

Maybe the above law changes pale in comparison to the money you can make by crying discrimination.

There is a subtle difference, sir. And that difference is telling you what is going to happen, how you and your (our) union could have embraced those changes and worked with the inevitable changes to our advantage, versus denying them and allowing them to overtake us, to all of our own detriment. That is not academic. Many of us told you over five years ago that we, yes we, could not avoid this.

But you, yes you, chose to interpret the situation as a "we" versus "they" issue. You versus me. Wrong. Can you spell D*E*N*I*A*L ? We should have been working together on this. We weren't doing that then and we aren't doing that now. You are blaming me for what is happening. For you to suggest to me and to others here that we (those who have recognized the impending change) have influenced Parliament to interfere with your right to never change is beyond the scope of rationality.

I truly hope that you don't regret having to pay the cost of the pigeons coming home to roost in your backyard.

[Rockie]

6 years boss.

Then you have the seniority to be an EMJ captain in Toronto, or at the very least an A320 FO anywhere else. If you can't feed your family on those wages I suggest you see a financial advisor. You also likely have a pretty significant career ahead of you which includes advancement despite your cries of doom, and to top that off others have fought and won your right to work until YOU decide to stop. Pretty good deal I'd say.

This could all have been dealt with and put in the history books by now with minimal fuss and relatively little disruption. Unfortunately ACPA with the wholehearted support of YOU prevented that from happening. Mandatory retirement died its inevitable and utterly predictable death, and all that remains is to implement the remedies from hundreds of discrimination cases that YOU caused to happen. You think you have something to complain about now?

As the saying goes, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[Johnny Mapleleaf]

Just because the rule changes doesn't mean it has to be followed.

Is that how you approach your job? The CARs are only a reference point, so you can do whatever you want, with impugnity?

The two pilots who were reinstated by order of the Tribunal were paid jointly by Air Canada and ACPA over $100,000 each in damages because the rules changed with the Tribunal's decision in August, 2009, and both Air Canada and ACPA failed to comply with the new rules by reinstating them at that point. There are almost 200 in the queue behind them.

Orders of the Tribunal are enforceable in the Federal Court. Non-compliance with the order is called Contempt of Court, which makes a second damage payable, usually at an exhorbitant rate on a daily basis until compliance is met.

Do you seriously believe that your employer or your Association does not have to follow the law? We covered this issue in my Grade 11 law class. Seriously. Give your head a shake.

[Ah_yeah]

As this issue has made it's way through the system I've been very curious as to how the FP60 case would be handled once it got to the crunch. Let's assume that the case for the abolition of mandatory retirement is won by the coalition. The case of BFOR becomes the last hurdle as I understand it (feel free to correct). While there are existing tests to the merits of BFOR, the case brought by the FP60 has sweeping change written all over it. What is to stop the cronies from messing with the definition of BFOR just to suit this case given the very sympathetic ear of the government. The same goes for punitive damage figures. I read 100K each for V and K (not verified, I only know of the 300+ that was sought). Please keep the blood pressure in check when and if anyone chooses to reply.