TORONTO - The Canadian Auto Workers union is pushing Air Canada (TSA:AC.A) to give up plans to relocate 130 jobs performed by the union's members in Montreal to the airline's operating centre in Toronto.
The CAW said Monday the airline didn't give any reasonable rationale for the moving the jobs, which involve scheduling pilots and flight attendants.
"Our members lives will be adversely affected by this decision," CAW president Ken Lewenza said in a statement.
"With the nature of the work that our members perform and the technology that exists today this decision makes no sense."
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said of 12 other airlines that it checked recently, all of them have their crew schedulers at their systems operation control centre.
Having the crew scheduling functions at Air Canada's new operational control centre over the next two years will improve customer service because it will be easier and more efficient to have the people in one place, he said.
There are currently about 250 people at the operations control centre in Toronto, where Air Canada has its main national and international hub.
"We're also going to look at other options that can mitigate this. For example, we may be able to find other jobs for people in Montreal who don't want to move or else maybe early retirements, that kind of thing," Fitzpatrick said Monday in a phone interview.
"It doesn't open until 2014, so that gives us lots of time to work through the issue."
The crew scheduling employees represented by CAW have been in contract negotiations with Air Canada since August.
The airline has been renegotiating collective agreements for most of its employees this year, often with the help of a federal conciliator or mediator.
Air Canada reached a contract covering about 3,800 striking customer service agents represented by the CAW this summer, but only after federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt threatened back-to-work legislation.
The two sides faced off again after Air Canada launched a court challenge to an arbitrators ruling that accepted the union's plan for resolving a pension dispute by creating a hybrid plan for new hires. Air Canada later withdrew the challenge.
The union representing Air Canada's flight attendants is currently in arbitration on parts of a contract they reached after Raitt intervened again.
The Air Canada Pilots Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are also in the midst of negotiations with the company.
Raitt has said Ottawa intervened in the labour disputes because of the importance of Air Canada as the country's largest passenger airline and the tenuous health of the Canadian economy.
However, labour leaders have accused Raitt and the Conservatives of siding with employers at the expense of employees.
