November 19, 2025
Dear Air Canada Aircraft Maintenance Engineers and Skilled Trade Professionals:
On November 18, 2025, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) released its final order confirming the fragmentation of the Air Canada TMOS Unit. The Board had been in possession of the complete briefing record since February, and its decision reflects careful consideration and analysis. We thank our members for their continued patience.
The Board’s decision first acknowledged Air Canada maintenance employees’ ongoing dissatisfaction with the IAMAW’s representation:
[89] The Board recognizes from the submissions and evidence on file that many members within the technical group are and have been unhappy with the IAMAW’s representation of their interests for many years, which has bred dissatisfaction and contempt among some of the members.
The Board then proceeded to document the history of dysfunction within the TMOS unit, stemming from the divergent interests of maintenance and non-maintenance employees. It relied on a 2011 report by government-appointed observer Madam Justice Louise Otis that documented maintenance employees’ long-standing complaints of under-representation by the IAMAW and the difficulties that the structure of the TMOS bargaining unit produced at the bargaining table. Bargaining in 2015-16, 2018-19, and 2022-23 had also been characterized by member dissatisfaction and dissention.
The Board also relied on statements by the IAMAW’s own representatives that unequivocally acknowledged the persistent dysfunction within the TMOS unit. IAMAW General Vice President Stan Pickthall, in 2018, wrote to other union executives describing the “difficult situation” created by groups with “opposing views of how to approach negotiations.” IAMAW President Brian Bryant, in 2024, placed TMOS District Lodge 140 into an ongoing supervision status citing internal conflicts at the bargaining table.
Additionally, the Board relied on Air Canada’s own response to AMFA’s application, which confirmed that the maintenance-only unit proposed by AMFA aligned with the Company’s regulatory obligations as both an Air Operator (AO) and Aircraft Maintenance Organization (AMO). It further noted the distinct terms and conditions of employment provided for maintenance employees under the Air Canada-IAMAW collective agreement.
The Board’s factors for bargaining unit construction include “the community of interest, employee mobility, the history of collective bargaining, methods of administration of the business and the viability of the proposed unit(s).” Reviewing its previous decisions related to the Air Canada TMOS unit, the Board concluded the following:
[103] In this case, the Board is of the view that the realities faced by the TMOS unit have significantly changed since its previous decision in 2005. In reviewing the various factors it relied on in Air Canada 341 in light of the submissions and the evidence filed in this application, the Board finds that there are now compelling reasons that warrant fragmenting the existing TMOS unit.
The Board’s decision reconfirms certification of the following bargaining unit:
All Air Canada Technical Services Business Unit employees, and excluding employees in the Airport & Cargo Operations Business Unit and Logistics & Supply Business Unit; and all management positions.
AMFA could not be prouder of this result. The Board’s decision reflects an enormous victory for Air Canada maintenance employees as well as AMEs and skilled aviation professionals across Canada. There is more hard work ahead. The IAMAW continues to pursue legal challenges to the Board’s decision, using your dues to finance its obstructionist strategies. By court order, the CIRB cannot release vote results until these legal challenges have been resolved. Once AMFA is confirmed as your certified bargaining agent, we will work to win a contract that your skill and dedication deserve.
Thank you again for your support and encouragement. We believe that critical work belongs in the hands of qualified, unionized professionals—like you. AMFA will continue to provide updates on the certification process as new information becomes available.
Sincerely,
Bret Oestreich
National President
