Stranger

Eh, you. go back to your hole.

The argument remains a straw man.

canadiancow

Sounds enjoyable.

I only have a few minutes to reply, so I'm trying very hard to summarize my thoughts into a couple sentences.

If a burger flipper makes $10/hour, and a refueler requires just as much skill (I'm not making that claim, but others have), then why should they be paid $18/hour?

I'd allow a bit of an increase for the hassle of having to work at an airport, but I bet there are lots of people making $10 who would gladly take a refueling job for $13.

I just don't like the "my unskilled labor is more important than a burger flipper" argument as to why they should make more.

If minimum wage is insufficient, push to have it increased. But this crap is unacceptable.

24left

Your YVR example is interesting. I was standing in front of the window in the YVR Dom MLL a couple of weeks ago and a Swissport truck drove by.
Do they have a contract for other services at YVR?

YXUhomebase

so looks like it is back to normal? anyone have any insight though if this might happen again on Monday morning? Dont want to arrive at YYZ at 6 am and find i am stuck there when i could fly out of yxu and head south.

YYT82

Haven't heard much today, and I am following the situation closely too as I am flying through YYZ on both Monday and Tuesday.

jaysona

A few morning flights were cancelled, but all seems to be running fairly well now.

There are still a few aircraft positioning issues, but they should be sorted out by Monday as long as there is no further work action at YYZ.

YXUhomebase

Thanks.

Just wondering if union will wait till Monday morning to do it again - one of busiest times at Pearson.

YYT82

Having pulled the stunt once already, the second time would be less effective. Airlines would already have their contingency plans in place ready to be deployed at moments notice. Not to mention the public opinion might be against the union so they won't get any sympathy even if they try.

drvannostren

"Current fuel workers make between $17 and $24 hourly, while their replacements will make no more than $14 an hour, he said."

Just quoting the Star article champ calm down. The difference was $1 anyway. Nitpick if you must. I also missed the part where I said "they all make $24 an hour" as you're intimating. I'm not a moron, I'm well aware that you start at a lower wage, again I never said they all start at the max. This is 100% about wages. The new company will be hiring, MANY of these guys will be offered jobs with the new company, it's happened right in front of my eyes at YVR. The difference is, they won't be offered the same wage. So the job action comes with them not wanting to go from a $24 or $23 or whatever f*cking number you want, down to $14. Hell I wouldn't either!

Nowhere am I suggesting these guys should just bend over and take it. But when 30 of 47 workers call in sick...that's not right. If you want to protest, call in sick in rotations, have 10 guys call in sick, then the next day 10 diff guys etc. You're crippling the system to further a personal agenda with illegal job action. The company is going to be gone either way, so all you're doing is pissing off the thousands of people going through YYZ daily. Which is what they're doing. YOU ARE NOT ESSENTIAL. Your service is, but you are replaceable.

I'm also not saying everyone should take paycuts in favor of profits. But when I was making $10.75 as a ground handler I thought "boy I could use more money...but my job is f*cking easy, and I know the margins are already slim, so I certainly don't expect it". I have the same issue with "scheduled raises"...congratulations, you showed up for work for a year, here's extra money for no extra work/performance/effort. When I wanted more money, I became a ramp lead, when I still wanted more money, I got into management, when I wanted more money I worked overtime.

The senior guys are in cushy jobs with hours that perfectly suit their lives at max pay...they don't want that to change, which is fair, but the way they're going about it isn't. I'm not even anti-union, in this case the union management/spokesperson is saying the right things, but anyone that thinks this isn't organized by a few of the high ranking guys, is kidding themselves.

Also I would hope that any of these high ranking guys that were going to be offered top seniority (albeit at lower wage) in the new company and now summarily going to be given a flat no if/when they do apply. Anyone that calls in sick on any of these days without a Dr note can be blackballed at that airport as far as I'm concerned.

Agree and disagree, I haven't made true minimum wage in a long time. I know it doesn't work in Vancouver. But I also know that I was getting by ok making like $13 an hour at YVR. It's about how you run your life too. I'm a single guy, I can't afford to have kids, so you know what, I won't. There's a lot of people out there saying they're broke, but attempting to live downtown, guess what downtown is expensive! Move to surrey, move to new west, Burnaby, they're all cheaper. If you have trouble paying for gas, why are you driving an explorer? Those are all choices. So is a minimum wage job, I don't agree that it's minimum wage or crime/welfare. At YVR we hired just about anyone without a criminal record and who had a drivers license. It wasn't GOOD paying, but it wasn't minimum wage either, benefits were pretty decent too. But we had so much turnover because LOTS of people just aren't willing to do an honest days' work to be quite honest. These guys would spend 1 day in the rain and hate the job. 1 day stacking pits of the aircrafts, didn't like the heavy lifting. Ramp work, when it's not miserable out, is a great job. Sure the pay sucks but in the summer you spend all day outside, getting a tan, working out, laughing with co-workers, you don't have to really watch your language, you get lots of breaks, it's 24 hours so there's shifts to suit everyone. It's not perfect, but we had lots of guys that had been there longer than me and I left after 6 years. Lots of those guys had kids and managed just fine too without making more than $18 an hour.

IF Swissport fuels at YVR now it's because of the acquisition of Globeground/Servisair which did handling and fueling among other things. At YVR Swissport does ground handling, pax services, cargo, aircraft grooming, baggage systems and some ad-hoc maintenance service (GSE not aircraft).

It also just occurred to me when writing baggage services. Swissport took over the contract for that a few years back. Most, if not ALL the previous company employees were offered jobs (I've since forgotten the name). Swissport streamlined the work (there used to be 3 people at the bottom of 1 belt doing the job of 1 person) and PROBABLY cut the wages back a bit (that part is strictly speculation). Lots of the employees joined Swissport, especially the junior ones, because for them, there was no money lost, plus the seniority would work out in their favor as lots of the higher paid employees opted not to join. To me that's exactly what should've happened, a new company takes over a contract, they want to make money and they recognized faults in the system and changed them. It's not about forcing people out of jobs, it's about being sustainable where lots of these union contracts aren't.

Don't be surprised in 10 years or whatever if Swissport can't sustain the amount of high priced employees they have. A certain amount of turnover works for the company. Keeping the top 25-50 guys is fine if the middle 100 rotate out every couple of years. The bottom 100 guys don't matter because frankly most of them don't stick around long enough to make it into the middle 100, but if they do, they're usually pretty good at their jobs by that point.

Sorry again for the length of the post, but like I said this gets me fired up. I have nothing against fuelers, unions, the companies, I have no vested interest in any of this. But unskilled labor can't pretend that they are skilled, are they important? Yes, we need these people, I need these people, I AM one of these people...but I don't expect to just make increasing money because I've done the same job forever. That, I do have something against.

YEG USER

Many people take minimum wage jobs simply because they have no other choice. Not many people would choose to earn minimum wage jobs when there are higher paying alternatives unless the job is something they love.

There are also any people performing unskilled jobs that I've seen wiring and I've thought to myself "you couldn't pay me enough to do that." Not that fuelling planes is one of those undesirable jobs.

canadiancow

When I was in high school, I made minimum wage.

When I finished high school, I had choices.

When I finished university, I had choices.

When I left my "first' job, I had choices.

Each of those choices resulted in either a huge opportunity, or a roughly 5x pay increase.

I have friends who made minimum wage, paid their way through a crappy trade school, and now make 3-5x minimum wage doing skilled labour.

If you want to sit on your butt in a union job expecting to make 3x minimum wage doing unskilled labour for the rest of your life, I have very little.sympathy.

ffsim

Amen ^

It always comes down to choices.

yulred

All of which would make a good deal more sense if:

1. Canada didn't have one of the most educated populations in the world. 53% of Canadians have an undergraduate and graduate degree. The OECD average is in the low 30% range (32% IIRC).

2. Canada wasnt one of the worst performing countries in the OECD in terms of underemployment. 20th out of 25, to be precise. The OECD defined underemployment as involuntary part time employment. Hourly wage jobs tend to be precisely that.

This notion of 'choice' assumes that with the right ingredients, one will get the right results. That ignores the multiple variables that come into play. Like the state of the economy, perhaps.

Never understood the vindictiveness anyhow. The reality is that we have more educated people than we know what to do with. Companies don't seem to have space for them, although I suspect a big part of that is down to the current trend of hiring specialists on inflated six figure wages at the entry level, and moving them up the ranks - with often poor results. Turns out management requires one to be more than a one trick pony, and frankly I think a lot of Canadian companies are only just beginning to rectify that problem. Of course, it also means that they aren't performing as well as they should - and consequently not hiring as often.

canadiancow

Oh?

Which of those didn't occur wholly in Canada?

yulred

Heh - hit the submit button by accident.