March 21, 2023
Dear Air Canada AMEs and Skilled Trade Groups:
On March 20, 2023, AMFA’s attorneys filed the Union’s response to briefs submitted by Air Canada and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (“IAMAW”) opposing AMFA’s request for certification of a bargaining unit at Air Canada of skilled maintenance workers. AMFA’s response, includes the following statements:
For generations, skilled airline maintenance workers have been victimized by [the IAMAW]. Their work has been outsourced. Their skills denigrated. Their wages suppressed below market levels. And their craft-specific leaders subject to intimidation and threats by the very entity that bears a legal duty to fairly represent them. The incumbent union has deliberately constructed a house divided that cannot stand . . . .
They have asked the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), a trade union founded on the principle that skilled airline maintenance workers have distinct interests, to serve as their bargaining agent. Recognition of a skill-based bargaining unit is the only means of addressing the [IAMAW’s] subordination of the economic and political interests of skilled maintenance workers to those of the unskilled workers who predominate in terms of numbers and political power. . . .
Skilled maintenance workers at Air Canada ask that the [CIRB] recognize their basic right to organize and grant them a bargaining unit of their own, served by a union of their choice.
We have received reports that the IAMAW has engaged in acts of coercion and retaliation against Air Canada skilled maintenance workers suspected of supporting AMFA. AMFA encourages employees to report those illegal actions directly to the CIRB or to AMFA.
Sincerely,
Bret Oestreich
National President
