CAW Reply to ASP Letter: Pending Strike Vote

CAW Reply to ASP Letter: Pending Strike Vote

November 13, 2011 at 9:00 PM

As many of you are aware there will be membership meetings on Tuesday November 15th at both Pearson and Billy Bishop Airports. On Friday ASP management distributed a letter to all employees in an attempt to intimidate and mislead our membership as it relates to the CAW membership strike information meeting(s).

The CAW ASP bargaining committee would like to respond to ASP’s misleading letter dated November 11, 2011. ASP is correct when they state that negotiations have been going on for a long time. The CAW served legal notice to bargain back in February and ASP immediately started to delay the process through cancelation and postponements of dates for no other reason than to frustrate the bargaining process and the ASP membership. To this point there has been no suitable offer to bring back to the membership to vote on.

ASP claims that they respect your right to vote to strike, but yet in their letter they are attempting to scare and mislead the membership by stating that if there is labour unrest they may not continue and maintain their relationship with the GTAA or Billy Bishop Airports. Of course nobody wants a strike. The CAW stated this at the last set of membership meetings. ASP is in control of their reputation and their labour situation and all they have done is worsened the labour situation with the ASP membership. They claim"they never had this problem with the other Union"... No kidding! ... ASP had a cozy relationship with your old Union.

That is why the membership voted overwhelmingly to join the CAW: a union that will stand up on behalf of the membership and will not be influenced to look the other way when it comes to the minimum standards in Canada Labour Code such as proper rest breaks, seniority, scheduling overtime calculation, hours of work and a fair wage increase. These are just a few areas that the CAW is trying to seek improvements on your behalf. The CAW has no intention to have the membership vote on a tentative agreement that does not address the many issues that you are subjected to on a daily basis – many issues that financially disadvantage you.

ASP also claims that this is important and that we have a right to negotiate an agreement, but yet they do not seem to understand that anything that we agree to is subject to a vote of the membership; something the previous Union never did.

Does anybody think that ASP is operating without realizing any profit? They are asking the membership to "not take anything less" as if that was some kind gift. ASP wages are just above the minimum wage and are not paying the appropriate overtime rates of pay as per the Canada Labour Code. This is just one many examples of ASP taking financial advantage of our membership.

The CAW is clearly aware and understands the numerous issues many of you experience on a weekly basis. ASP’s mismanagement has caused significant financial hardship for so many members (see letter from President Tim Thomas). This unchallenged past practice must stop. We intend to do what is necessary to bring about change whereby the employer adheres to the collective agreement and respects quality of life for our members.

The ASP letter dated November 11th is a pathetic attempt to scare and intimidate our membership. You deserve better! We are confident that all of you will see through this fear mongering and give your union the support that is needed to send ASP a strong message of support.

The meetings we have scheduled on November 15th are a follow-up to our commitment we gave you at our last membership meeting(s). At that time we told the members, if there was an offer to settle we would be voting on it, and if there was no suitable offer we would ask for strike vote. No one should be surprised by this.

It does not necessarily mean that we are going to have strike; the last thing that we want to happen is a strike. A negotiated settlement is what we want to happen. We would only have a strike if there is no reasonable offer by ASP to recommend to the membership.

  

In Solidarity,

Your CAW Bargaining Committee,
Savithri Alahari
Jesse Jackson
Patrick Williams
Joel Fournier, National Representative
Ashley Watkins, Executive Assistant