Unifor Western Director Joie Warnock wrote a column for the July 15 edition of the Province newspaper explaining what is behind the strike by Unifor Local 114 workers at Cascade Aerospace in Abbotsford, BC.
If you don’t go to Abbotsford often, you may not have noticed 24-hour-a-day picket lines at Cascade Aerospace.
Cascade Aerospace is a contractor for repair and overhaul on Canada’s Hercules heavy transport plane fleet, and other customers including CanJet, First Air, and Lynden Air Cargo. Cascade is also working on two cargo planes for the Mexican government.
Skilled workers off the job at Cascade Aerospace in Abbotsford will tell you—probably right down to the last person—that they don’t want to be on strike. Striking isn’t fun or profitable for anyone. So why are more than 400 skilled technicians on a 24-hour picket line?
The answer might surprise you.
Picket lines have been up at Cascade Aerospace since June 4 over the proposed cuts to the health benefits, pension contributions, and vacation time of future hires. That’s right: people who don’t even work there yet.
Cascade is demanding that new hires receive fewer benefits and fewer vacation days. It’s called two-tiering, and employers are increasingly using it as a divide and conquer technique, since the pain is borne by future employees who aren’t voting on the bargaining proposals.
Two-tiering is an aggressive tactic and a new one to Cascade employees. The tactic was almost certainly ordered from the very top by the new owners, Halifax-based IMP Group. The firm’s negotiators have admitted that it wants to keep wages down in Abbotsford as a pre-emptive tactic against the lower-waged employees in Eastern Canada.
But this employer picked the wrong union local. Members of Unifor Local 114 responded at the bargaining table with a firm “no”.
Before IMP Group took over, bargaining was relatively harmonious by private sector standards. In fact, the last collective agreement was signed without the need for a strike vote.
But the new round of bargaining has taken a disturbing turn that has major implications.
Cascade Aerospace is Abbotsford’s largest private sector employer. A labour dispute of this magnitude promises to impact a broad swath of the community from the employees, to local small businesses who rely on their spending power, to the students studying at the nearby University of the Fraser Valley and BCIT who expect to work at Cascade one day.
Resisting cuts to benefits for young workers is a bold position for the Cascade employees to take. It represents a commitment to good jobs, not just for the current crop of workers, but for young people and Abbotsford as a whole.
There’s no shortage of reasons why the next generation of Cascade workers need some help. Student debt in Canada is at an all-time high. Youth unemployment is double the Canadian average. The availability of good jobs hasn’t been lower in two generations.
By taking a stand to protect good jobs for future Cascade employees, Unifor Local 114 members are contributing the long-term economic viability of the region.
It’s worth noting that Cascade Aerospace and IMP Group are not poverty cases. Cascade Aerospace has the rare privilege of the stability and profitability that comes with 20-year Department of National Defense contracts.
The union local has made itself clear: if new hires have the same training and are performing the same job, they deserve the same benefits. There will be no arbitrary workplace divisions for these technicians.
Given what’s on the line for the economy of the area, the political response to the Cascade strike has been underwhelming.
Good jobs in Abbotsford are slipping away and that doesn’t seem to bother Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman, MLAs Mike DeJong and Darryl Plecas, or Member of Parliament Ed Fast. All have been silent since the strike began.
In fact, DeJong announced millions of dollars in provincial funding for training in the aerospace sector in April. Unifor has not been able to confirm if this massive public investment is being used to train the Ontario back-up labourers who have been flown in by Cascade to cross the picket line. DeJong will not comment.
Unifor is calling for some leadership in Abbotsford. Cascade thrives off of federal contracts, and it would settle tomorrow if the Defense Minister suspended those contracts until a fair settlement is reached that doesn’t sell out the next generation of Cascade employees.