Air Canada maintenance workers protest

Air Canada maintenece workers protest. (June 5, 2009)

About 1000 Air Canada  maintenance workers protested Friday at the company's headquarters on Cote-Vertu.

The union is concerned that some of its maintenance jobs will be sent to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, and that its pension fund is $3.2 billion in debt, according to  Jocelyn Vincent, a spokesperson for the machinists union in Montreal.

It wants Prime Minister Stephen Harper to tell Air Canada to protect their jobs, and to pay back the money owed to the pension plan.

Concerned over potential job losses

The union's concerns date back to October 2007 when Air Canada, as part of a restructuring effort, partitioned off its maintenance workers and facilities, and sold them to another company.

The company that currently handles the maintenance is called Aveos. It has hangars in four Canadian cities, plus El Salvador.

In Canada, there are 15 hangars that are used as maintenance bays to accommodate work on Air Canada planes.

The union says El Salvador has space available to work on six planes; that is scheduled to shoot up to 16 spaces.

With the increased capacity, the union is concerned their jobs will be outsourced to El Salvador.

To make the situation more complex, as Vincent put it, the employees are Air Canada workers but they are loaned out to Aveos.

Pension plan

The pension plan debt has its roots in Air Canada's bankruptcy protection proceedings in 2003.

Normally, the investments that make up the pension plan grow on their own. In bad economic times, Air Canada puts money into the pension plan to make sure it continues to be sustainable.

However, as part of the bankruptcy protection procedures, the workers agreed the company could pay what it owed to the pension plan over the following 10 years.

Due to the current economic straits, Air Canada is now renegotiating with the union on the pension pay backs.

Air Canada says it is willing to work with the workers to reach an agreement.

"We respect that our employees and their right to express their concerns, such as the pension and we share with them the importance of our pension fund our number one focus and priority for our executive team," said Isabelle Arthur, a spokesperson for Air Canada.