The WestJet Group cancelled another 25 flights late Wednesday ahead of a potential strike by its aircraft maintenance workers, adding to the growing wave of labour unrest that threatens to derail summer travel plans across Canada.
About 3,300 travellers with flights scheduled on Thursday and Friday have been affected by the decision. The announcement comes just over a week after WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline, cancelled some 31 flights with more than 6,000 travellers impacted.
“This timing could disrupt the travel plans of more than 250,000 guests scheduled to travel over the July long weekend,” WestJet said in a statement Wednesday.
Some 670 WestJet mechanics, represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, are poised to walk off the job as early as Friday at 5:30 p.m. The company has been facing demands from workers for better wages and working conditions.
This comes as the union is accusing WestJet of suing it without notifying its negotiators, who are working with the airline on hammering out a new collective bargaining deal.
The union says WestJet’s statement about a strike putting it and travellers in peril is “inflammatory” and is urging WestJet to spend more time negotiating with union representatives.
According to WestJet, it presented the union with a “Canadian industry-leading agreement,” which was better than the previous agreement that was rejected by the union.
“We have no choice but to hold strong on a reasonable outcome that protects our future and ability to provide Canadians with critical and affordable air travel,” said WestJet president Diederik Pen in a statement.
Pen previously said WestJet began bargaining with the union nine months ago and a tentative agreement was rejected earlier in June that would have made its aircraft maintenance engineers the highest paid in the country, with a take-home pay increase of 30 to 40 per cent in the first year of the proposed deal.
The looming strike is part of a continuing trend in the “last couple of years, of more confrontation at the bargaining table and a greater risk of work stoppage,” said Jim Stanford, economist and director of think tank Centre for Future Work, in a previous interview.
Union workers are feeling increasingly emboldened to reject tentative agreements as they fight to negotiate wage gains in line with the rising cost of living, he said.
“Workers are angry because their wages have lagged behind prices and they want to catch up.”
This is a developing story.
With files from The Canadian Press.
