Peanut
February 5, 2003, 11:44 AM
This was posted elsewhere but I think needs to be brought to the fore for discussion. It is a letter by a now retired CAIL member.
Some issues to consider - Jan/25/2003
Once more the membership is facing a moral crisis in the coming component elections. This is not a vote of AC vs Cdn. This is a vote about who best can represent you against management, regardless of personal feelings. I am not asking or telling you who to vote for. In the end vote for what is best for you, but there is no doubt in my mind that management would like to see Sachs/Nolan replaced by almost anyone.
Do not confuse the elections with the seniority issue as some people would like to convince you.
There are four distinct and separate issues.
1) The seniority arbitration and the appeal. 2) The component/Division elections this Jan/2003
3) The locals elections later in Feb/Mar 2003 4) Negotiations
The following might help you decide:
1) Seniority arbitration and appeal:
If an appeal is in order, then the appeal should already have been done a long time ago by the Cdn Component officers. Delaying the finalizing of the seniority decision and intermingling of F/as is not helping anyone. (I believe the opposite, it would have helped negotiations if it had been over & done). In any case who gets elected to Component has nothing to do with the seniority arbitration or the arbitration appeal.
2) Component elections;
The Component Elections are extremely important for the membership. They will determine who will be representing you against management. From my experience I believe management would be pleased if Sachs/Nolan were not elected. They might even try to influence your vote. It is not the first time that a management tries to influence union voting. They did it at Cdn in 96/97 (we have proof). Is AC different?
Some people are trying to convince you that Sachs/Nolan are the sole people to blame for the loss of the seniority arbitration!! I do not agree, but what a compliment. I heard it many times, "Only Sachs & Nolan are responsible for our seniority arbitration's loss". If these statements were true, it would be the best compliment one could make to Sachs/Nolan. Of course the same people maintain that the quid pro quo of holding the Cdn component officers responsible for the seniority loss does not apply.
Let’s look at it again. The Canadian Component had some of the best labour lawyers on their side and the Division policy, but according to these statements, Sachs/Nolan were able to beat all odds and win the seniority arbitration for AC members !!! Surely it should be easy to decide who will best represent you.
I am not a personal friend of Sachs or Nolan, nor do I see them socially. But I can vouch that, while I was a union officer, I saw them in the office almost every day I was there. While I was not privy to what they did, I saw the hours they put in (& they were not reading the newspapers). On the other hand, I know how the CDN component officers behaved. NO CONTEST. If after we merge Sachs and Nolan represent the ex-AC/Cdn members the same way they represented their Ac members during the seniority merger, that would be the best for all members. This should not be taken as an indication that Sachs/Nolan will solve all the AC or Cdn problems. The way things are going with this industry it is not and it cannot be. From the Cdn side there is such a backlog of grievances, which have been lingering for the last 6 years that it will be difficult to settle them all in favor of the Union (they were left festering for just too long by the Cdn component). But I believe that based on the options you have. It is no contest.
3) Local Elections;
For local elections due in Mar/03, I have different suggestions. I believe it would benefit the membership greatly, if new base presidents were elected at Vancouver and Toronto. (Especially in Yvr). (The main reason for suggesting a Yyz change is because of the convention delegates’ issue & how it was handled).
4) Negotiations and the Ex CDN agreement
One misconception being circulated (mostly amongst AC employees), is that the Canadian officers are better at negotiations because of some of the conditions we had in the Cdn agreement, (DP minus 4,
1 ½ over 14h, SOLO etc..)!!. That is another royal BS which some people would like you to believe. The truth is that most of those wonderful working conditions we had in the Cdn agreement were won a long time ago, prior to any of the present Cdn officers ever getting involved in their negotiations.
I represented yyz in negotiations when we got DP minus 4 (77/78), I represented yyz in negotiations when we got 1½ for drafting, I represented yyz in negotiations when we got 1½ for duty over 14h (77/78), I prepared & presented the arbitration that paid us the draft premium over and above any comparison (93/94), (ie: if you were drafted for a 10h flight and lost a 15h flight, you would get paid 15h+5h draft), I with lots of help from A.Bidlock & JJ.Israel, negotiated the best 36 mths and pension indexing, which gave us long overdue parity with other unions (other unions got it during the WD merger, Cupe did not). We also successfully retained 1.5rrsp, which some unions gave up, etc.. I am sure my memory does not fails me when I say that none of the present Cdn component officers were present &/or involved in any of those negotiations. I strongly believe that if they had been involved, we would not have achieved those gains.
But I do remember most of the present Cdn officers being present (minus Gaetz) when in June/00 in less than a week of pathetic negotiations, we gave up the Cdn agreement (against my recommendations and vote), without even getting the AC agr in full or "SOLO" bidding or pension index. Notwithstanding that one month prior (may 2000), with the assistance of a Cupe national representative, we had all agreed that we would never sign the AC agr without pension parity (which was the biggest monetary item). If we wanted pension parity (and pension indexing and SOLO or anything else), that was the time to get it. Following the ratification vote, I heard some comments that in June/00 we had already negotiated to keep the RRSP even after we crossed over to the AC pension. That is incorrect. Since Aug/00, the company has always maintained that we would not keep the Cdn RRSP once we moved to the AC pension. Of course that RRSP issue has been left outstanding since Aug/00 (& still is?). Why was it not arbitrated?.
I know that the bonus AC got is a sore point to some of you, but personally I disagree mostly with any duty over 16hrs and ZIP, (in the 1990 WD merger a 17hrs duty day was given to CDN and in 93/94 it took the actual walking away from negotiation to get back that 17hrs duty day concession). In any case I strongly believe that if the seniority merger & appeal had been over and done with (which they should have been), these negotiations might have been quite different. All the public confrontation, animosity, tension between the two groups did not help the union in negotiations. What did you expect?
Some of you believe that AC Cupe did not want to negotiate with us and it is their fault we got a lousy deal. That is FALSE. We invited them to negotiate with us in 2000 and they declined because they were not ready. In response they invited us to wait until 2001 for their agreement expiration and to negotiate with them, and we declined to wait (our agreement expired dec/00). There was no pressure for us to give away the Cdn agr unless we got AC agr in full plus some Cdn clauses (we used to say we wanted AC +). Instead promptly (in less then 7days) we sold out the cdn agreement. Specifically agreeing that we would not get the retroactive AC pension parity, & without "SOLO" in the agreement or pension indexing. Now we are trying to blame this new AC negotiating committee for not getting a better deal !! Wake up.
As far as I am concerned since 95/96 the Cdn cex has ceased to be efficient. It is more worried about politics, sticking together & elections than anything else (tried to warn you in 96). I believe that the main duty of an elected officer is not sticking together, but it is to represent members even if it means speaking against the cex majority. Nothing can be worst for the membership than having a clique that sticks together.
Since 1997 almost no technical arbitrations have been done. To management it is worth millions to have such an ineffective cex. I am always amazed at some of the dumb rumours floating around. It is important for the membership to learn not to believe all these useless rumours, to learn how to understand the actual records (consider only what is in writing and signed) and use basic common sense.
Look at the latest developments: Everyone else is to blame for failure to get date of hire (or AC Pension parity, or a better agr or "SOLO"), except the CDN cex of course !! Wake up,
From Sprugnoli: Further Comments if you care or need to read more;
I heard a lot of complaints that AC officers tricked us or broke their word & went against the Division policy etc. etc.!!. Everyone in the Cdn cex should have expected what the AC component did. I do not know how many times I argued with various Component officers that they should publicly and strongly support Onex as soon as we knew about it, BECAUSE ONEX WAS THE BEST DEAL, BECAUSE AC COULD NOT GIVE US A BETTER DEAL. Instead we waited to support onex until it was too late to make a difference.
What could have been a better deal for all employees, than date of hire, wage parity in two years, keep the Cdn agreement and a buy out that made your head spin (basically the onex offer). Instead I was told that there might be "a better deal" and we did not want to upset Air Canada!!!, that we had supporters in the AC ranks, that there was a joint "Grass Root Movement" at certain bases etc..etc..!!!
To me that was all BS. I never expected anyone from AC to support date of hire for all cdn in a way that would make a difference at the arbitration (in the end nobody from AC did). When following another useless cex meeting, out of frustration I published yyz bltn #29/oct/99, explaining that AC would not and could not give us a better deal then Onex, I was berated by some cex member for even saying so and speaking against the cex majority!!. Apparently upsetting their plans. What their plans were I still do not know.
No matter how strongly I disagree or dislike the seniority decision, AC officers were not the one representing the Cdn employees, Cdn officers were. What amazes me most, is the fact that everyone else has been blamed for the results (AC Officers, Cupe National, Division, The Arbitrator etc..etc..), but not the Cdn cex officers. How come the membership does not see though that nonsense?. To me it is a non issue. If blame must be assigned, then you must ask yourself the question: Who in the CDN Component would have claimed "Victory" had date of hire been achieved ?. Should the same people not "claim" responsibility for the loss ?
The Cdn component is certainly not shy at claiming "victories". Look at the transition bulletin of Sept/02, explaining some transition arbitrations they "WON" (Just in time to try to impress you for the elections I guess). The way I see it is: In June/2000 we gave up the Cdn agreement. We did not get full parity with the AC agreement. Full Pension parity the biggest single monetary item (I was told it is worth as much as the AC bonus) was not part of the package nor was the Cdn "SOLO" bidding, nor pension indexing (& the continuation of Altamira rrsp is contested). This in spite of the fact that one month prior, in may 2000, with the assistance of a Cupe national representative, we had all agreed we would never accept the AC agreement without at least AC pension parity, we wanted AC+, (we got AC-). In addition, the wording of the memorandum was so bad (mostly the VSIP) that most of the conditions were violated or denied.
A transition committee of 3 officers was formed and full time releases have been granted since Sept/2000. The committee was personally appointed by Twentyman and of course yyz was refused full time representation. In total it means 90mos (almost 1 full time release for 8years) worth 400/500,000$ approx, plus all the related expenses, plus the hiring of a paralegal to do the actual arbitrations, because no one from the appointed members could present the arbitrations. Over two years later we get some decisions that are less than what we negotiated and it is branded a victory!!
In the meanwhile for the last 6 years no other technical arbitration worth mentioning has been done and the backlog is so huge that Cdn employees will never recoup the losses. Some of the outstanding arbs (dating back years) had the potential to be worth millions for the membership (including refunding part of the wage reduction), but even after the negotiations of 96 were finished, they have been totally ignored.
Let me give you one example; in June/99 the company had offered 1.1 mil (all fig approx) to settle 4/5 grievances, while we were claiming they owed the membership 4.5 mil. You do not need to be a genius to figure out that if management offers 1.1mil to settle, our claim must have some real validity. In Aug/2000 I explained the case to the lawyer who was supposed to do the arbitration and to the 3 component officers and supplied all docs. Later the component president decided to proceed without the lawyer (the case looked so easy !!, almost as easy as the seniority arbitration). Nonetheless since I had prepared the docs & since I had done the original arbitration, I offered to do it but was not allowed. Instead the component did it and only argued one grievance!!. Results; In Sept/00 we ended up with a decision that gave us half of what the company had offered (most of the amount for that 1 griev had been agreed to since 95/96). Of course we claim that the other grievances are still outstanding, but the company claims they are not. The decision was in 2000, 3 yrs later we have not proceeded with follow up meetings to clear this issue. Of course Cdn component officers remain silent about that "victory". Do you understand why it is important to management who gets elected as component officers. It is worth millions.
The Date Of Hire POLICY : The date of hire policy was a Division policy not a National policy. If anyone should have enforced it, it should have been primarily the Division officers. For some time we even had two Cdn employees at the helm of the Division!!. (Both officers were supported by yvr in previous elections). Did it help us? It was all useless. Airline Division has been useless to us. Get rid of it now.
There is also an undercurrent to blame national. That is totally unfair. We chose Cupe over CAW in the 80s because they would not interfere in the internal affairs of the division. (Including the seniority issue). That specific issue is well documented. Some of you might have forgotten that in 1986, at a time when we were discussing Cp/Pwa/Nd merger, CAW (Bob White) published a bltn implying that in case of a merger the national policy was date of hire. I quote from the CAW bulletin:
......the overriding principle will be that a fair seniority system is one that recognizes the equality of one day of seniority whether that time was spent at CP, ND or Pwa ....... ......the principle of "one for one" seniority is the fairest of them all............
As far as I can remember CUPE did not make any defining statements and instead promised autonomy, which is what the majority wanted. Which is why we chose CUPE. Well we got our autonomy. I can find other issues to blame Cupe National, without the need to fabricate. Note also that other unions (incl CAW) went to arbitration to settle the seniority merger regardless of national vues.
Juniors vs Seniors : I heard some junior f/a commenting that once more they got shafted and the seniors got what they wanted, "date of hire". That is another BS. The reason seniors got date of hire, is because a straight ratio would have been better for most of the senior CDN F/as. In other words, we got the worst of two "concepts" (date of hire and ratio). Where "date of hire" would have been in our favor (mostly 1979 onward) we got a ratio. Where a straight ratio would have been in our favor (mostly until 77/78) we got "date of hire". Some employees (mostly in the 70/77 range) lost up to 400 seniority positions with date of hire vs what they would have received with the ratio. To me date of hire is only fair if it is applied to all. As far as I know all seniors F/as were willing to fight for "date of Hire" as a principle for all employees, but not a pick and choose option. Instead we ended up with a worst decision than one could imagine.
I have always been of the opinion that "date of hire" was a must, not because "it is right" as a concept, but because "it was the policy". That was the decision in Cp/Nd/Pwa/Epa merger. It is what we did with WD. The regionals agreed to do it. But the threat of ratio for the seniors (bad for AC) should have been used to get date of hire for the juniors. In other words, from day one, we should have taken the position that "Date of hire is for all or no one", instead of all those convoluted blocking solutions.
To remain silent in this time of moral crisis is unacceptable. I am not asking or telling you who to vote for, it is up yo you. I only hope the above helps. Sprugnoli Jan/25 2003
PS: I saw some disturbing Email from yul about the Cdn merger cmmtt. As far as I know the merger committee was doing what the component officers asked them to do and I assume the cex officers were aware at all times of what the merger cmmtt was doing (or should have been) (I still disagreed with the tactics used). Because of the usual politics the Component officers only wanted certain people involved in the merger. Some people were "In", some were "Not In". As I stated to you in bltn 54, I was not. (This is not criticism. I would have done the same but would accept responsibilities).
Some issues to consider - Jan/25/2003
Once more the membership is facing a moral crisis in the coming component elections. This is not a vote of AC vs Cdn. This is a vote about who best can represent you against management, regardless of personal feelings. I am not asking or telling you who to vote for. In the end vote for what is best for you, but there is no doubt in my mind that management would like to see Sachs/Nolan replaced by almost anyone.
Do not confuse the elections with the seniority issue as some people would like to convince you.
There are four distinct and separate issues.
1) The seniority arbitration and the appeal. 2) The component/Division elections this Jan/2003
3) The locals elections later in Feb/Mar 2003 4) Negotiations
The following might help you decide:
1) Seniority arbitration and appeal:
If an appeal is in order, then the appeal should already have been done a long time ago by the Cdn Component officers. Delaying the finalizing of the seniority decision and intermingling of F/as is not helping anyone. (I believe the opposite, it would have helped negotiations if it had been over & done). In any case who gets elected to Component has nothing to do with the seniority arbitration or the arbitration appeal.
2) Component elections;
The Component Elections are extremely important for the membership. They will determine who will be representing you against management. From my experience I believe management would be pleased if Sachs/Nolan were not elected. They might even try to influence your vote. It is not the first time that a management tries to influence union voting. They did it at Cdn in 96/97 (we have proof). Is AC different?
Some people are trying to convince you that Sachs/Nolan are the sole people to blame for the loss of the seniority arbitration!! I do not agree, but what a compliment. I heard it many times, "Only Sachs & Nolan are responsible for our seniority arbitration's loss". If these statements were true, it would be the best compliment one could make to Sachs/Nolan. Of course the same people maintain that the quid pro quo of holding the Cdn component officers responsible for the seniority loss does not apply.
Let’s look at it again. The Canadian Component had some of the best labour lawyers on their side and the Division policy, but according to these statements, Sachs/Nolan were able to beat all odds and win the seniority arbitration for AC members !!! Surely it should be easy to decide who will best represent you.
I am not a personal friend of Sachs or Nolan, nor do I see them socially. But I can vouch that, while I was a union officer, I saw them in the office almost every day I was there. While I was not privy to what they did, I saw the hours they put in (& they were not reading the newspapers). On the other hand, I know how the CDN component officers behaved. NO CONTEST. If after we merge Sachs and Nolan represent the ex-AC/Cdn members the same way they represented their Ac members during the seniority merger, that would be the best for all members. This should not be taken as an indication that Sachs/Nolan will solve all the AC or Cdn problems. The way things are going with this industry it is not and it cannot be. From the Cdn side there is such a backlog of grievances, which have been lingering for the last 6 years that it will be difficult to settle them all in favor of the Union (they were left festering for just too long by the Cdn component). But I believe that based on the options you have. It is no contest.
3) Local Elections;
For local elections due in Mar/03, I have different suggestions. I believe it would benefit the membership greatly, if new base presidents were elected at Vancouver and Toronto. (Especially in Yvr). (The main reason for suggesting a Yyz change is because of the convention delegates’ issue & how it was handled).
4) Negotiations and the Ex CDN agreement
One misconception being circulated (mostly amongst AC employees), is that the Canadian officers are better at negotiations because of some of the conditions we had in the Cdn agreement, (DP minus 4,
1 ½ over 14h, SOLO etc..)!!. That is another royal BS which some people would like you to believe. The truth is that most of those wonderful working conditions we had in the Cdn agreement were won a long time ago, prior to any of the present Cdn officers ever getting involved in their negotiations.
I represented yyz in negotiations when we got DP minus 4 (77/78), I represented yyz in negotiations when we got 1½ for drafting, I represented yyz in negotiations when we got 1½ for duty over 14h (77/78), I prepared & presented the arbitration that paid us the draft premium over and above any comparison (93/94), (ie: if you were drafted for a 10h flight and lost a 15h flight, you would get paid 15h+5h draft), I with lots of help from A.Bidlock & JJ.Israel, negotiated the best 36 mths and pension indexing, which gave us long overdue parity with other unions (other unions got it during the WD merger, Cupe did not). We also successfully retained 1.5rrsp, which some unions gave up, etc.. I am sure my memory does not fails me when I say that none of the present Cdn component officers were present &/or involved in any of those negotiations. I strongly believe that if they had been involved, we would not have achieved those gains.
But I do remember most of the present Cdn officers being present (minus Gaetz) when in June/00 in less than a week of pathetic negotiations, we gave up the Cdn agreement (against my recommendations and vote), without even getting the AC agr in full or "SOLO" bidding or pension index. Notwithstanding that one month prior (may 2000), with the assistance of a Cupe national representative, we had all agreed that we would never sign the AC agr without pension parity (which was the biggest monetary item). If we wanted pension parity (and pension indexing and SOLO or anything else), that was the time to get it. Following the ratification vote, I heard some comments that in June/00 we had already negotiated to keep the RRSP even after we crossed over to the AC pension. That is incorrect. Since Aug/00, the company has always maintained that we would not keep the Cdn RRSP once we moved to the AC pension. Of course that RRSP issue has been left outstanding since Aug/00 (& still is?). Why was it not arbitrated?.
I know that the bonus AC got is a sore point to some of you, but personally I disagree mostly with any duty over 16hrs and ZIP, (in the 1990 WD merger a 17hrs duty day was given to CDN and in 93/94 it took the actual walking away from negotiation to get back that 17hrs duty day concession). In any case I strongly believe that if the seniority merger & appeal had been over and done with (which they should have been), these negotiations might have been quite different. All the public confrontation, animosity, tension between the two groups did not help the union in negotiations. What did you expect?
Some of you believe that AC Cupe did not want to negotiate with us and it is their fault we got a lousy deal. That is FALSE. We invited them to negotiate with us in 2000 and they declined because they were not ready. In response they invited us to wait until 2001 for their agreement expiration and to negotiate with them, and we declined to wait (our agreement expired dec/00). There was no pressure for us to give away the Cdn agr unless we got AC agr in full plus some Cdn clauses (we used to say we wanted AC +). Instead promptly (in less then 7days) we sold out the cdn agreement. Specifically agreeing that we would not get the retroactive AC pension parity, & without "SOLO" in the agreement or pension indexing. Now we are trying to blame this new AC negotiating committee for not getting a better deal !! Wake up.
As far as I am concerned since 95/96 the Cdn cex has ceased to be efficient. It is more worried about politics, sticking together & elections than anything else (tried to warn you in 96). I believe that the main duty of an elected officer is not sticking together, but it is to represent members even if it means speaking against the cex majority. Nothing can be worst for the membership than having a clique that sticks together.
Since 1997 almost no technical arbitrations have been done. To management it is worth millions to have such an ineffective cex. I am always amazed at some of the dumb rumours floating around. It is important for the membership to learn not to believe all these useless rumours, to learn how to understand the actual records (consider only what is in writing and signed) and use basic common sense.
Look at the latest developments: Everyone else is to blame for failure to get date of hire (or AC Pension parity, or a better agr or "SOLO"), except the CDN cex of course !! Wake up,
From Sprugnoli: Further Comments if you care or need to read more;
I heard a lot of complaints that AC officers tricked us or broke their word & went against the Division policy etc. etc.!!. Everyone in the Cdn cex should have expected what the AC component did. I do not know how many times I argued with various Component officers that they should publicly and strongly support Onex as soon as we knew about it, BECAUSE ONEX WAS THE BEST DEAL, BECAUSE AC COULD NOT GIVE US A BETTER DEAL. Instead we waited to support onex until it was too late to make a difference.
What could have been a better deal for all employees, than date of hire, wage parity in two years, keep the Cdn agreement and a buy out that made your head spin (basically the onex offer). Instead I was told that there might be "a better deal" and we did not want to upset Air Canada!!!, that we had supporters in the AC ranks, that there was a joint "Grass Root Movement" at certain bases etc..etc..!!!
To me that was all BS. I never expected anyone from AC to support date of hire for all cdn in a way that would make a difference at the arbitration (in the end nobody from AC did). When following another useless cex meeting, out of frustration I published yyz bltn #29/oct/99, explaining that AC would not and could not give us a better deal then Onex, I was berated by some cex member for even saying so and speaking against the cex majority!!. Apparently upsetting their plans. What their plans were I still do not know.
No matter how strongly I disagree or dislike the seniority decision, AC officers were not the one representing the Cdn employees, Cdn officers were. What amazes me most, is the fact that everyone else has been blamed for the results (AC Officers, Cupe National, Division, The Arbitrator etc..etc..), but not the Cdn cex officers. How come the membership does not see though that nonsense?. To me it is a non issue. If blame must be assigned, then you must ask yourself the question: Who in the CDN Component would have claimed "Victory" had date of hire been achieved ?. Should the same people not "claim" responsibility for the loss ?
The Cdn component is certainly not shy at claiming "victories". Look at the transition bulletin of Sept/02, explaining some transition arbitrations they "WON" (Just in time to try to impress you for the elections I guess). The way I see it is: In June/2000 we gave up the Cdn agreement. We did not get full parity with the AC agreement. Full Pension parity the biggest single monetary item (I was told it is worth as much as the AC bonus) was not part of the package nor was the Cdn "SOLO" bidding, nor pension indexing (& the continuation of Altamira rrsp is contested). This in spite of the fact that one month prior, in may 2000, with the assistance of a Cupe national representative, we had all agreed we would never accept the AC agreement without at least AC pension parity, we wanted AC+, (we got AC-). In addition, the wording of the memorandum was so bad (mostly the VSIP) that most of the conditions were violated or denied.
A transition committee of 3 officers was formed and full time releases have been granted since Sept/2000. The committee was personally appointed by Twentyman and of course yyz was refused full time representation. In total it means 90mos (almost 1 full time release for 8years) worth 400/500,000$ approx, plus all the related expenses, plus the hiring of a paralegal to do the actual arbitrations, because no one from the appointed members could present the arbitrations. Over two years later we get some decisions that are less than what we negotiated and it is branded a victory!!
In the meanwhile for the last 6 years no other technical arbitration worth mentioning has been done and the backlog is so huge that Cdn employees will never recoup the losses. Some of the outstanding arbs (dating back years) had the potential to be worth millions for the membership (including refunding part of the wage reduction), but even after the negotiations of 96 were finished, they have been totally ignored.
Let me give you one example; in June/99 the company had offered 1.1 mil (all fig approx) to settle 4/5 grievances, while we were claiming they owed the membership 4.5 mil. You do not need to be a genius to figure out that if management offers 1.1mil to settle, our claim must have some real validity. In Aug/2000 I explained the case to the lawyer who was supposed to do the arbitration and to the 3 component officers and supplied all docs. Later the component president decided to proceed without the lawyer (the case looked so easy !!, almost as easy as the seniority arbitration). Nonetheless since I had prepared the docs & since I had done the original arbitration, I offered to do it but was not allowed. Instead the component did it and only argued one grievance!!. Results; In Sept/00 we ended up with a decision that gave us half of what the company had offered (most of the amount for that 1 griev had been agreed to since 95/96). Of course we claim that the other grievances are still outstanding, but the company claims they are not. The decision was in 2000, 3 yrs later we have not proceeded with follow up meetings to clear this issue. Of course Cdn component officers remain silent about that "victory". Do you understand why it is important to management who gets elected as component officers. It is worth millions.
The Date Of Hire POLICY : The date of hire policy was a Division policy not a National policy. If anyone should have enforced it, it should have been primarily the Division officers. For some time we even had two Cdn employees at the helm of the Division!!. (Both officers were supported by yvr in previous elections). Did it help us? It was all useless. Airline Division has been useless to us. Get rid of it now.
There is also an undercurrent to blame national. That is totally unfair. We chose Cupe over CAW in the 80s because they would not interfere in the internal affairs of the division. (Including the seniority issue). That specific issue is well documented. Some of you might have forgotten that in 1986, at a time when we were discussing Cp/Pwa/Nd merger, CAW (Bob White) published a bltn implying that in case of a merger the national policy was date of hire. I quote from the CAW bulletin:
......the overriding principle will be that a fair seniority system is one that recognizes the equality of one day of seniority whether that time was spent at CP, ND or Pwa ....... ......the principle of "one for one" seniority is the fairest of them all............
As far as I can remember CUPE did not make any defining statements and instead promised autonomy, which is what the majority wanted. Which is why we chose CUPE. Well we got our autonomy. I can find other issues to blame Cupe National, without the need to fabricate. Note also that other unions (incl CAW) went to arbitration to settle the seniority merger regardless of national vues.
Juniors vs Seniors : I heard some junior f/a commenting that once more they got shafted and the seniors got what they wanted, "date of hire". That is another BS. The reason seniors got date of hire, is because a straight ratio would have been better for most of the senior CDN F/as. In other words, we got the worst of two "concepts" (date of hire and ratio). Where "date of hire" would have been in our favor (mostly 1979 onward) we got a ratio. Where a straight ratio would have been in our favor (mostly until 77/78) we got "date of hire". Some employees (mostly in the 70/77 range) lost up to 400 seniority positions with date of hire vs what they would have received with the ratio. To me date of hire is only fair if it is applied to all. As far as I know all seniors F/as were willing to fight for "date of Hire" as a principle for all employees, but not a pick and choose option. Instead we ended up with a worst decision than one could imagine.
I have always been of the opinion that "date of hire" was a must, not because "it is right" as a concept, but because "it was the policy". That was the decision in Cp/Nd/Pwa/Epa merger. It is what we did with WD. The regionals agreed to do it. But the threat of ratio for the seniors (bad for AC) should have been used to get date of hire for the juniors. In other words, from day one, we should have taken the position that "Date of hire is for all or no one", instead of all those convoluted blocking solutions.
To remain silent in this time of moral crisis is unacceptable. I am not asking or telling you who to vote for, it is up yo you. I only hope the above helps. Sprugnoli Jan/25 2003
PS: I saw some disturbing Email from yul about the Cdn merger cmmtt. As far as I know the merger committee was doing what the component officers asked them to do and I assume the cex officers were aware at all times of what the merger cmmtt was doing (or should have been) (I still disagreed with the tactics used). Because of the usual politics the Component officers only wanted certain people involved in the merger. Some people were "In", some were "Not In". As I stated to you in bltn 54, I was not. (This is not criticism. I would have done the same but would accept responsibilities).