The Longest Canadian Airline Labor Dispute is On!

At 10:30 or so on the morning of November 19th,1991, we were told at a meeting scheduled for negotiations that we'd been locked out. In fact, the people walking the picket line knew before those of us in the meeting did!

The company thought we'd crumble, that the flight attendants and pursers, who were young and inexperienced in the labor movement, would cross their own picket lines in droves.

We lasted 16 months, weathering 2 Canadian winters, being followed home by company paid goons, having our phones tapped (illegally), defying police who were too busy harassing us to bother with the real criminals in Toronto, and a government that was too busy trying to bury a damning Safety Review on Nationair than it was/is about the safety of the airline industry in Canada.

A sampling of the players?... traitors in our midst, management puppets too stupid to know better (Hi Val!), company moles, scab unions, the mediator who solved the Oka Native crisis in Quebec, and other flight attendants who suddenly thought they knew what was best for everyone, after years of complacency and flying to exotic locales for extended periods of time while we were in negotiations

Oy vay, what an education!

I had some cop from Peel Regional Police (Bernie) intimate (accent on the last syllable there) that he'd use his gun on me if I repeated something he told me... wish I could remember what it was so I could tell you!

We learned that the Prime Minister of Canada (both past and present) are/were in bed with the President of Nationair. A personal letter I sent to Prime Minister Jean Chretien, was forwarded to the President of Nationair....now up on fraud charges.

Kim Campbell, who at the time was the Minister of Defense, didn't seem to see a problem allowing our military and their families fly in and out of Miltary airbases in Germany on aircraft of dubious integrity with at least one scab flight attendant with an even more dubious background. She was arrested on an INTERPOL warrant for heroin smuggling.

In the absence of federal anti-scab legislation, Nationairs' goons harassed, assaulted and intimidated picketters. Nationair's chief of security was charged with assault after punching a locked-out flight attendant. One scab was arrested for pulling a shotgun on picketers in Mirabel Airport.

Our Mediator was Judge Gold, was "famous" at that time as the guy in Canada that could solve disputes with Canada Post and the "Oka Crisis" (which involved Natives in Quebec upset about people building a golf course on their burial land so they put up blockades to protest, in which 1 person was killed by shotgun fire).

A fair man. Twice, he made mediation recommendations that were not binding on either party. (This was not binding arbitration) Recommendations in which either party was neither winning or losing everything in dispute. Twice the mediator recommended the same salaries that we'd be asking for (which were in line with the other Charter carriers in Canada at the time, one of which is still in business) Twice the flight attendants said "okay", and twice Nationair said ''no way". (Eventually, when it's very survival was at risk, Nationair would agree to the exact same salaries they'd twice said "no" to)

One of the more unusual suggestions he made was that the lockout and the union boycott be "suspended" for a period of 6 months, the locked out employees go back to work under their old conditions, and both parties continue to negotiate/mediate. He would work with us as long as it took. The Flight Attendant group voted in favor, the company refused, saying that if we came back, it would be under the "new" conditions that the scabs were working under. The Mediator was not amused.

A SCAB Union?
One of the more bizarre aspects to the lockout was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and their involvement in the attempt at the unionizing of SCABs at Nationair.

When the Flight Attendants/Pursers and In-Flight Service Managers first unionized with CUPE, Nationair froze the ISM position and created the IFD position, which was not unionized and was a managerial position. This in effect, removed one working body from our aircraft, unless you were working with one of the few ISM's left. IFD's could not participate in service as that was "owned" by our bargaining unit. Nationair did not want to put another flight attendant on board, and felt (initially) that they needed a manager who was not part of any union on board, to be the eyes and ears of Management.

As most would probably expect, eventually, the IFD's decided to unionize, so CUPE and the Teamsters battled it out. Each holding information/disinformation meetings as the case may be. The Teamsters won the certification vote. This happened before the lockout.

So during the lockout the Teamsters set sights on the scabs. Getting them to sign union cards and saying that they would be the only group certified to work on Nationair aircraft and that the locked out flight attendants walking the picket lines would be history, never coming back because they weren't part of the Teamsters union.

As it turned out, Nationair didn't have a problem with it's flight attendants being part of a union, as long as it was the Teamsters union. Apparently, what they really had a problem with was CUPE. You know you're in trouble when a company wants you to join a certain union.

It all got rather confusing I'm sure... the company endorsing one union over the one they'd locked out, saying that they'll negotiate with the Teamsters but not CUPE, the Teamsters claiming that they were the official representatives of the "new" flight attendants, and then the locked out union members picketing corporate headquarters and saying that they were the first and only bargaining unit for flight attendants.

So not only were Teamster members protecting scabs as they crossed CUPE picket lines, but they were trying to break the CUPE union and replace CUPE members with scabs.

When it was all over, Nationair had spent so much money fighting us, training scabs (well over $200,000), paying over $35,000 a month for it's "private security" goons, not paying it's bills, third-party liability insurance, landing fees, fuel taxes and what-not, that they declared bankruptcy on our first day back at work. Not only that, but the President , who cared about nothing more than his reputation, found that reputation somewhat sullied by his sudden inability to get away with mis-representations, the resignation of 3 V.P.s, (VP of Communications, Head of Marketing and Chief of Operations) and his company being linked to gun-running.

Eventually, one of our competitors would promise to hire everyone. Everyone that is, except for those nasty union officers. Sound discriminatory? We thought so too, as did the Canadian Labor Relations Board. Air Transat was found guilty of discriminating against us for our involvement in the union, totally disregarding our superior qualifications.

Pretty strange for a company that enjoys investment from the Solidarity Fund in Quebec, Canada. This is a fund made up of union member's contributions. (Of course these union people in Quebec haven't been told about this, and CUPE sure won't tell 'em, so keep it under your hat okay? They'd be plenty pissed if they found out they were financing a company that discriminates against union officers.

(Air Transat has a flight attendant union, but it's real cozy with them, if you get my drift....)