YYZ Security Protest
 

Passengers complained of long lines at Pearson International Airport Thursday because of a protest by security guards.

Some passengers said it was complete chaos at the airport, as they experienced delays for several hours.

Bassem Handy, a passenger who was on a flight from San Francisco to Toronto, said he and other passengers waited on the airport tarmac for 45 minutes. He said no announcement was made explaining the delays. When he called Air Canada’s concierge service, the airline said airport security is on a work-to-rule.

“As a result of a work and labour issue with CATSA guards today, pre-board screening is very slow this evening. We do expect some delays for passengers travelling out of Toronto Pearson,” a spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority said in a recorded message.

The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority or CATSA is responsible for passenger screening at airports across the country.

If you were delayed at Pearson International Airport send your photos to [email protected]

Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/...t-pearson?bn=1

Flying LGA > YYZ > YEG. (Stay tuned for my other post about the LGA > YYZ segment.)

Security was pretty bad. There were 12 people (I counted) in the connections priority security line (on Level 2). It took 34 minutes to process 12 people. CATSA was artificially creating a bottleneck during the x-ray scanning. The CATSA officer manning the x-ray monitor either a) got up and walked around between passengers, or b) just looked away for about a minute while each bag was up on the display.

Regular security line stretched all the way down the hall on Level 2. PAX were being sent down from Level 3 as, apparently, they weren't even processing priority folks up there due to the craziness.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

The extremely tiny amount of sympathy I had for airport screeners has now vaporized. Fire them.

So the war begins... CATSA's attempt to consolidate power from its contractors on November 1 is going well I see. I expect similar things to pop up in pretty much every non-coastal province.

Indeed. Delaying (read: screwing) passengers isn't going to get you very far in drumming up support. Sigh.

Folks, there is a thread on this already started here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-c...ustoms-am.html

A quick check before posting will avoid duplicate posts (and make it easier for the rest of us to follow the discussion. :)

Any idea what their grievances are, legitimate or otherwise?

According to The Star updated version, its because how the company has changed their working hours/scheduling

Likely due to a wide range of labour issues with both CATSA and contractor (Garda) management. CATSA is trying to shake things up across the country right now by arranging the contracted companies (which had to go through a recent bidding contest) into regions. This is presumably to take a tougher stance on the companies who are beginning to stand up to their bureaucracy. Garda will be the contractor in YYZ/YTZ for the foreseeable future, but between now and November 1, and possibly beyond, will be a turbulent time for airport screening in Canada. There was a major unrelated development in this industry recently on which word started trickling out today, but I won't reveal it for fear of government/private retribution. The important thing is that things aren't gonna be any easier for a while!

I'm actually impressed by this. The CATSA screeners' union in YYZ (Canadian Airport Workers Union) has traditionally been pretty spineless... maybe a few disgruntled union stewards started this.

Going through YYZ connection security on Tue around 6 pm the 2 screeners at the metal detector were discussing the burning issue of the day. One upset screener was telling the other:"They will be scheduling by competence* instead of seniority in violation of the contract".

*the exact word which I forget suggested competence, accomplishment, demonstrated ability, achieved performance

If these people have a grievance based on "competence" then I fear we the traveller are all royally screwed.

Well if shift bidding and scheduling are to be done by seniority (which it obviously would be) according to the CA, the company would be legally obligated to follow it. "Competence" is subjective, seniority is very clear-cut. Now, if this was regarding competencies, there might be a bit of a grey area.

Not relevant. The contract is between Garda and GTAA. Garda is not meeting its obligations, so GTAA should terminate the contract with cause and hire another security firm. Plain and simple.

Now, if the Garda still meets Service Level Agreements despite the job action, then some heads at GTAA should start rolling right about now for crappy supplier management.

Accountability is a ......

(you have to love sensorship) canine of the female gender

The contract is between Garda and CATSA. As much as I love to bash the GTAA, they can't be blamed for this.

I stand corrected. Someone at CATSA should have their head roll. :D

If I'm not mistaken (not an expert on these matters east of YWG), Garda currently has a contract directly with CATSA, not the GTAA and if that isn't the case, it will definitely be the case come November 1. The federal legislation that regulates this (CATSA Act) lists contracting private companies and delegating to airport authorities to contract private companies among the options to implement airport security in Canada. The former option is the predominant one currently, and will become the only one on November 1 as far as I know. When the screeners walked out in YYC in 2004, the contractor then (Aeroguard Group) was very shortly cut away in YYC, YEG and YMM. However, because of the apparently warm relationship between Garda and CATSA they will actually be expanding their nationwide presence.

CATSA is too messed up to be fixed. It needs to be abolished and the leadership's heads placed on stakes to make an example of them.

So...we are creating more bureaucracy....more chains in the command.

We don't put "leadership's heads ... on stakes", and we will most certainly not "make an example of them" in this country. Not only are senior bureaucrats in this country un-fireable, we are better than that; we do not want any hurt feelings. Not that it matters anyways, they could just get another government job somewhere else.

Interestingly, the TSA front liners are government employees, managed directly by the government. I think SFO is the only place that is outsourced. Despite this, the TSA surcharge is about 8-10 times less and TSA checkpoints are run a lot smoother despite the stupid policies. Not only is this a lesson in how outsourcing is not always the best and cheapest, but it demonstrates who we should go after: the government imposing this fee. I'm pretty sure some companies are getting loaded through these contracts.

Say, where is mother government in all of this? Shouldn't Lisa the rat Raitt do something about this in order to "keep our economy on track"? After all, she did legislate employees that were lawfully on strike back to work....:p

SFO is the biggest airport which does not have "real" TSA screeners, but it is not the only one. A (slowly) growing number of airports are opting for private security.

Indeed, if the Canadian government wants to deem this an "essential service", they should scrap the CATSA fee and pay for this through the regular tax bill. After all, regardless how much you fly, safe skies are not a luxury. Only then will CATSA be at least somewhat accountable to the people. There's a lot less BS in a TSA checkpoint than you see in Canada.

...as much as I make fun of CATSA (How can you not, be honest) they are a hell of a lot better than the "unemployable people" the US hires as TSA agents.

That's 9.1% of their population, you know! :p Nearly the population of all of Canada!

Here is an idea, just as you see in the US as far as civil unrest on Wall Street; there are more of us then them. Lets all rush the security check points so they have to shut down the airport! I am sure the feds would step in and have the RCMP, Toronto Police, Customs, and the Boy Scouts step in and clean up the mess! After all if you shut down Pearson it would affect the Canadian Economy and that is a NO NO. :cool:

Are the normal priority lanes for AC top tier and Nexus users still in place and effective to any extent?

According to numerous reports in the other thread, the priority and Nexus queues are all still open and being used. Everyone else is SOL.

Perhaps the Guarda screeners might realize that YYZ pax don't need another reason to fly from BUF. There are already plenty.

How the company schedules workers may become a moot point for many of these screeners - the more pax in BUF, the less pax at YYZ, the less security screeners needed here.

For interest's sake: Garda is a publically traded company on the TSX.

Here is a 3 year chart of their stock, it's quite a bumpy ride:

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GW....d=p81789520149


There are a few good screeners at YYZ T1 domestic: Cecil who I see on the lower level, and a few guys upstairs who are polite, respectful. I always return the favour and thank them. Let's face it, despite the recent crackdown on our rights and sanity, we do need screenings for every passenger. There are random nutbars everywhere, always have been.

Of course I am first to grumble: on this trip for the first time in my 7.5 years of regular air travel my hands were swabbed. It only took a second as I waited in line.

But really, let's say someone just mixed up the perfect concoction of hard-to-detect stuff in their garage, one morning. Would they really think: Oh geez I'd better not put this in my carry on because I might get the once-in-five-years hand swab!! :rolleyes:

A better idea: at CN Tower you must walk though a machine that puffs air on you and then reads it. A great idea in place for years. Sadly the nude body scanners were gathering dust on showroom floors and had to be moved, pronto. One guy, yep one guy who had inside help to travel without a passport affected 7 billion people, overnight.
Coincidence? Or a wet dream for state crackdowns and the incidious link between government (our money) funding of private companies (kickbacks, envelopes of cash - looking in your direction, Honourable Mr. Mulroney)

I don't know if there are still issues today... yesterday Mrs. Redtop got through without too much problem, she has a Nexus card and Amex Plat for the express security line. Of course her flight was delayed two hours, so it didn't do her all that much good.

Gloves. :D
Love it.