All Out to Uphold the Rights and
Dignity of Airline Workers!

Air Canada ground workers stage wildcat strike at Pearson Airport in Toronto, March 23, 2012.

Hands Off Air Canada Workers!
• All Out to Uphold the Rights and Dignity of Airline Workers!
• Condemn Brutal Mass Termination of 2,600 Aveos Workers and Use of Police Against Them!

Quebec Youth Boldly Lay Claim to the Nation
• Mass Action of 200,000 Students in Montreal Defends the Right to Education

Quebec Budget and the Royalties Fraud
• Do Not Use Our Natural Resources to Pay the Rich!

Hands Off Air Canada Workers!

All Out to Uphold the Rights and
Dignity of Airline Workers!

TML denounces the latest attack on Air Canada workers which came in the form of the suspension of several workers on the evening of March 22 following an incident in which Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, recognized by workers while passing through Pearson Airport in Toronto, was called to account for her role in the Harper government's attacks on airline workers. They clapped sarcastically and made comments criticizing the government's attack on their right to strike. Three workers were suspended shortly thereafter by Air Canada management. The workers took action immediately and 150 Air Canada ground workers and baggage handlers at Pearson Airport walked off the job. They were joined Friday morning by other Air Canada workers while actions in support of the walkout took place in Montreal and Quebec City. Besides suspending the three workers, Air Canada also fired 37 ground workers using the same pretext of the incident with the Labour Minister.

Speaking with TML workers expressed their frustration. The suspensions were the last straw in a series of attacks on airline workers which led to the wildcat strike, they said. They have been blocked from exercising their right to strike in support of their demands, the pilots have been threatened with a lockout and back-to-work legislation and now a phony bankruptcy proceeding has seen 2,600 Aveos workers summarily fired. They pointed out that the attempts to squeeze further concessions out of the workers comes after Air Canada paid dividends to shareholders in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars and bonuses to executives, including $5 million to CEO Calvin Rovinescu.

This is totally unjust, the workers said. All of them earn a modest living and they have already made considerable concessions in the last 10 years. Their standard of living is being pushed lower and lower, they said. The workers told TML they are adamant about not returning to work until their colleagues are reinstated.

The workers also decried the fact that the Labour Minister's response was to criminalize them so as to divert from the objective need to sort out the problems in the airline industry in a manner that upholds the public good, which includes dealing with the workers' concerns to their satisfaction. She threatened to deploy police against the workers. Air Canada then asked for and immediately got an injunction forcing the workers to go back to work. After negotiations with management, a union representative later told the media that an agreement was reached with Air Canada to reinstate the fired workers, that no worker who participated in the walkout will face penalties and that the three suspended workers will return to work after their 72-hour suspension without further penalty.

This incident underscores the degeneration of labour relations in Canada and the need for workers to be vigilant in defence of their collective rights. Labour Minister Lisa Raitt holds a public office and is accountable to the public and workers in particular. Instead, she and the government have done their utmost to ensure Air Canada has the monopoly "right" to do as it pleases. The Harper government has done so citing high ideals of public safety and the well-being of Canada's economy, when in fact it is the workers' fight for proper pay and working conditions which defends public safety and sustains the economy. For the workers to call the Labour Minister to account for the government's anti-worker wrecking activity is taking up their social responsibility.

TML calls on all workers to defend the dignity and rights of the Air Canada workers. TML places the blame for the untenable situation at Air Canada squarely on the Harper government and Air Canada management. Workers across the country must take heed in the coming period of increased attacks on their rights and take action to ensure that no section of workers is left to fend for themselves.

Condemn Brutal Mass Termination of 2,600
Aveos Workers and Use of Police Against Them!

Hundreds of Aveos workers protest outside the company's gates in Montreal, March 20, 2012.

In a matter of three days, Aveos Fleet Performance turned the lives of its 2,600 airline maintenance workers upside down. On March 18, Aveos closed its maintenance centres in Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg, laying off 2,600 workers, leaving them in the lurch without warning or explanation. On March 19, the Quebec Superior Court granted Aveos protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). On March 20, Aveos announced it was ceasing all of its Canadian operations, terminating all its employees and beginning the process of liquidating its assets under CCAA. Aveos' Canadian operations perform mostly heavy maintenance to airframes, engines, landing gear and other components on Air Canada planes.

Montreal, March 20, 2012

Workers have been demonstrating in front of Aveos and Air Canada buildings near the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport in Dorval and organizing actions in Winnipeg, Vancouver and at the Quebec National Assembly. In Montreal, Air Canada got a court injunction making it illegal to block access to its buildings. There, workers were brutally assaulted by riot police with pepper spray and tear gas and arrested for the crime of defending their livelihood and fighting for their dignity, or in one incident, simply trying to pick up their tools and personal belongings from the workplace.

Neither Aveos nor Air Canada recognize any responsibility for the fate of the Aveos workers. These workers are just expected to disappear somewhere amid the scam and violence that has been organized against them. Aveos is doing its best to divert attention from its criminal activity, blaming Air Canada for pushing it into bankruptcy by starving it of maintenance contracts and looking for cheaper contractors outside the country. Air Canada is doing its utmost to deny its whole history with these workers and the work they do. Through privatization and financial schemes Air Canada's heavy maintenance work was split from the air carrier some years ago to become Aveos, this so-called separate unit. As recently as January 2011, the Aveos workers were still Air Canada employees and they have challenged the transfer of their employment to Aveos. The workers highlight this fraud when they say Air Canada is violating the Air Canada Public Participation Act, passed at the time of its privatization in 1988 which states the privatized airline must keep maintenance centres in Montreal, Winnipeg and Mississauga.

Vancouver, March 19, 2012

The Harper government has shamelessly declared the workers are on their own because Aveos’ decision to terminate all workers and liquidate assets is "purely private business." Besides the callousness of portraying this violent attack on workers as a private matter, the Harper government is covering up a huge issue concerning the public's health and safety. With the workers terminated and the assets headed to liquidation, who will do heavy maintenance on the planes and who is doing it now? Air Canada says it is not equipped to do that kind of maintenance and can only do the day-to-day sort. We are supposed to trust Air Canada's word that it is going to make sure the planes are properly maintained. A month ago, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt submitted Air Canada's dispute with its pilots and mechanics to the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) in the blink of an eye, crushing the workers' fight under the hoax of health and safety concerns. Yet today, according to the Harper government, everything is fine even though the whole human, technical and material system that has taken decades to build is being dismantled without warning! Who is going to take responsibility if something happens?

All workers must stand up in defence of the Aveos workers, their livelihood and their right to fight for their rights. This situation is further proof of the dangers posed by privatization, contracting out and other schemes that are rampant and part of the collusion of governments and private monopoly interests acting against the public interest. Workers can be deemed "non-persons" and thrown onto the street on a whim. There is no choice but to step up the organized fight of all workers to hold to account these monopolies and the governments in their service, and force governments to defend public right instead of monopoly right. The mass firing of the Aveos workers must be overturned and Aveos must not be allowed to close under CCAA, thereby wiping out its assets. Air Canada must be forced to recognize its responsibility toward these workers and their work.

(Photos: IAMAW, R. Branici)

Quebec Youth Boldly Lay Claim to the Nation

Mass Action of 200,000 Students in Montreal
Defends the Right to Education

On March 22, striking Quebec students held a militant and historic day of action in which an unprecedented 200,000 students joined by people from all walks of life took to the streets of Montreal to take up their social responsibility and defend the right to education. The streets of Montreal were a sea of people as far as the eye could see, with students carrying massive banners and colourful placards with militant slogans rejecting the government's plans to hike tuition fees and undermine their future and that of Quebec.

TML salutes the bold stand of the Quebec youth which defends the interests of all of Quebec by opposing the anti-social offensive of the Charest government and its anti-people neoliberal measures which steal the social wealth and leave the youth and all other sectors of society to fend for themselves. Enough! All out to support the Quebec students and the fight to defend rights!

(Photos: TML, S. Kuhn)

Quebec Budget and the Royalties Fraud

Do Not Use Our Natural Resources to Pay the Rich!

In its March 20 budget, the Quebec government said it will "realize the full potential of natural resources for the benefit of all Quebeckers." According to its perverse capital-centred logic, this means using natural resources to pay the debt! This shows the contempt of the Charest government for the demands of the workers and people of Quebec that the natural resources must serve their well-being and security. The sell-out policies of Quebec governments have led to the devastation of entire communities, including communities based around the forestry industry. Rather than remedy the situation and hold global monopolies to their obligations, the government continues to pay the rich, helping them to pillage our resources. We must not let the Charest government get away with this royalties fraud!

Finance Minister Raymond Bachand announced that "in 2011-2012 the gross royalties from natural resources -- mines, forestry, water -- will reach close to $1.2 billion, nearly $500 million more than the average royalties collected from 2006-2007 to 2009-2010." He says that by 2016 they will reach $1.48 billion. The fraud is that the government gives the impression that it wants to restrict the global monopolies from enriching themselves at the expense of our natural resources, leaving nothing for Quebec and its regions. But what the minister failed to mention is that these "increased" royalties are nothing compared to the billions the government uses to "attract" international investments, through the construction of roads, ports, airports and railways, and by expanding the hydro-electric network, which it offers on a silver platter along with other "incentives." For the Northern Plan alone, the Charest government plans to spend $80 billion on infrastructure, nearly $50 billion of it on Hydro-Québec.

Whether it be the workers in Rio Tinto, the forestry workers across Quebec or the people's rejection of the shale gas projects, Quebeckers are demanding control over their resources and that they serve the public good.

The only way to end this nation-wrecking and turn the tide in favour of developing a self-sufficient economy that benefits all regions and serves the security of the workers and the well-being of the people is to build an effective Workers' Opposition in the National Assembly capable of restricting monopoly right. The parties of the rich will not do it. What is needed is a conscious, organized and determined Workers' Opposition that sees to it that the resources that belong to the people serve the people.

(Translated from original French by TML Daily)

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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca