Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Thousands of U.K. train drivers walked off the job Saturday in a strike over jobs, pay and conditions, scuppering services across much of the country. The action was the latest in a spreading series of strikes by British workers seeking substantial raises to offset soaring prices for food and fuel.
The 24-hour strike by members of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen halted trains on major routes, including the main lines between London and Scotland and commuter services around the capital.
Weekend workers, soccer fans heading for games and families seeking seaside solace from a heat wave were among those forced to change their plans.
This has been a summer of travel disruption in Britain. Thousands of railway cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers staged a series of one-day strikes in June and July. More strikes are scheduled next week on nationwide trains and on London's bus and subway network.
The disputes center on pay, working conditions and job security as Britain's railways struggle to adapt to travel and commuting habits changed - perhaps forever - by the coronavirus pandemic.
There were almost 1 billion train journeys in the U.K. in the year to March, compared to 1.7 billion in the 12 months before the pandemic, and rail companies are looking to cut costs and staffing after two years in which emergency government funding kept them afloat.
Unions accuse Britain's Conservative government of preventing train companies - which are privately owned but heavily regulated - from making a better offer.
“We find ourselves in a position where we are saying `That won't be enough,' they say `It's down to the government,' we talk to the government and they say `You have got to talk to the employers,' and then we end up with a situation where it goes round and round in circles,” said Mick Whelan, general secretary of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen.
The Department for Transport said claims of government meddling were “entirely false.”
More public- and private-sector unions are planning strikes as Britain faces its worst cost-of-living crisis in decades. Postal workers, lawyers, British Telecom staff, dock workers and garbage collectors have all announced walkouts for later this month.
U.K. inflation has hit a 40-year high of 9.4%, and the Bank of England says it could rise to 13% amid a recession later this year. The average U.K. household fuel bill has risen more than 50% so far in 2022 as the war in Ukraine squeezes global oil and natural gas supplies. Another increase is due in October, when the average bill is forecast to hit 3,500 pounds ($4,300) a year.
Adding to the travel chaos, air travelers in many countries are facing delays and disruption as airports struggle to cope with staff shortages and skyrocketing demand for flights after two pandemic-hit years.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.