The Canadian Auto Workers union is "satisfied" with the tentative deal it has reached with Air Canada, said president Ken Lewenza, but the agreement still leaves a dispute over pensions unresolved.
The deal, which must still be ratified by union members but is being endorsed by their bargaining committee, ends a short-lived strike by 3,800 Air Canada employees at nine airports.
Workers will be back on the job Friday morning, Lewenza told reporters at a news conference after the deal was announced.
The news came just hours after the Conservative government tabled a bill that would have forced the striking employees to return to work.
Lewenza and the union's bargaining committee had been meeting with Air Canada representatives all morning, in an attempt to hammer out a deal.
"We're satisfied with our collective agreement," Lewenza told reporters Thursday afternoon. "We're satisfied that our members made progress for the next four years in wages and in other areas that were of priority interest to them."
According to Lewenza, the new deal includes a wage increase and addresses quality of life concerns raised by union members. However, Lewenza said the union's demand that new hires be included in a defined benefit pension plan was left out of the new agreement. Air Canada wants future hires to be included in a defined contribution plan, which is cheaper for the company.
Lewenza said the pension issue will go to a mediator and will proceed to arbitration if a mediator can't work out a deal.
"Do I feel good about passing on a risk to new generations of workers that deserve our representation today? The answer is, I'm not happy about that," Lewenza said. "But at the end of the day, bargaining is tough and you have to make tough decisions."
Lewenza said union members will vote on the four-year deal within the next four to five days.
Duncan Dee, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Air Canada, said the company was "pleased" about the tentative agreement.
"The agreement will help ensure the long-term sustainability of Air Canada while maintaining industry-leading compensation and benefits for our employees," Dee said.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, who earlier in the day tabled a back-to-work bill on the grounds it was necessary to protect Canada's fragile economic recovery, praised the deal on CTV's Power Play.
"It happens all the time with parties when they know that the decision-making power, regardless of management or labour, is going to be taken out of their hands and put into the hands of a third party," Raitt said. "They have a very keen interest in making sure that the posturing at the table stops, that you get past all the straw horses, that you are at the final details and that's what we had today."
CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife tweeted Thursday afternoon that Air Canada sources were crediting Raitt's work behind the scenes with helping the two sides reach a deal. Raitt confirmed on Power Play that she, along with her chief of staff, was on the phone with Lewenza and Air Canada officials moments before the deal was reached.
But Lewenza told reporters that a "constructive dialogue" was ongoing between the two sides, and said government intervention was "distasteful" and "unconstitutional."
"Collective bargaining is between the company and the union," he said. "There should have not been any intervention by government because we believe that we could have got an agreement maybe even quicker than today without the intervention of government, because we were awfully close prior to the government introducing legislation."
Lewenza accused the federal government of trying to use its majority in Parliament "to weaken the bargaining position of the union."
Raitt denied that tabling the back-to-work legislation was an assault on workers, saying the Canada Labour Code gives her ministry many tools to help facilitate a deal.
"But at the end of the day the parties as well can exercise the rights they have," Raitt said. "One is to lock out, the other is to strike. So they exercise their right to strike. It doesn't mean that they have a right to stay out on strike to the detriment of the general Canadian public."
The legislation came despite assurances from Air Canada that business was carrying on virtually as normal, with managers filling in for the 3,800 call centre staff and check-in agents at nine airports.
Air Canada said only 1 per cent of flights were affected.
Both Raitt and Prime Minister Stephen Harper said earlier Thursday that the government wasn't taking sides in the labour dispute, and defended the move toward legislation as necessary to protect Canada's economic recovery.
Both the Liberals and New Democrats were opposed to the legislation.
NDP labour critic Yvon Godin said the introduction of legislation signals that "under the Conservative government, it means that you don't have the right to strike anymore."
Godin added: "I think the minister and the government would have done better to say, ‘Don't come see us for help, you better resolve your problems.' And that would have been respectful to the bargaining table, that that's where it should have been resolved."
Liberal labour critic Rodger Cuzner said the move signals to workers across the country of what they can expect when it's time to begin negotiating new collective agreements.
"If this is the kind of action that we are going to expect from this government, I think organized labour in this country should be well aware and should be concerned," Cuzner said.
