Fisch

Canadian Airlines flight attendants take Milton to the board for ``interference''

VANCOUVER, April 25 /CNW/ - Flight attendants at Canadian Airlines
International have filed an unfair labour practice complaint with the Canadian
Industrial Relations Board. ``Both Canadian and Air Canada are guilty of
interfering with the administration of the Union and its exclusive right of
representation,'' stated Terry Twentyman, President of the Canadian Component
of the Airline Division of CUPE.
The Canadian Component of the Airline Division of CUPE represents 3500
flight attendants.
Air Canada is currently aggressively engaged in the merging of Canada's
two national carriers by integrating Canadian's fleet and routes with Air
Canada's.
Unable to merge the employee groups at this time and in order to address
a surplus of flight attendants at Canadian and a shortage of flight attendants
at Air Canada, management devised a plan to offer permanent positions at Air
Canada. Only language-qualified CAIL flight attendants, who are mostly junior
employees, through a ``one-year leave of absence program'' at Canadian could
transfer over to Air Canada.
``At a time when the procedures and process for integrating seniority
lists have not yet been determined, Air Canada has set out to ``cherry pick''
flight attendants from Canadian, train them as ``new hires'' and place them on
the bottom of the Air Canada seniority list. More senior CAIL employees are
left to wait for retirement and voluntary termination incentives that have not
surfaced,'' said Twentyman.
The complaint also stems from recent statements made to Air Canada and
CAIL employees by Robert Milton insisting that integrating CAIL and Air Canada
bargaining units on the basis of `date of hire' would be unfair to the Air
Canada employees. ``These comments were spoken only weeks after Milton made
repeated statements that seniority integration ``belonged'' to the unions and
that he would operate the two airlines as separate corporations and ``brands''
for an indefinite period of time or `as long as it takes','' added Twentyman.
``There is great concern that Air Canada favours the interests of current
Air Canada employees, The special leave program puts our members on the bottom
of the Air Canada seniority list before a determination of seniority
integration has been addressed,'' explained Twentyman.
``Robert Milton must understand that inflammatory remarks regarding
seniority will jeopardize future working relationships between both the Air
Canada and Canadian groups and interferes with legitimate union
representation'', concluded Mr. Twentyman.
Air Canada is expected to respond to the complaint today. A Public
hearing will be held at the Canadian Industrial Relations Board in Toronto in
early May.