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Air Canada wants to eliminate 1,868 jobs by the end of October. Air Canada has said that this workforce reduction is temporary in nature.

CUPE is convinced that all the workforce reductions can be achieved without laying anybody off involuntarily. Moreover, our solutions would help senior flight attendants exit the workforce leaving room for younger flight attendants. This will help bring labour costs down significantly.

CUPE has already worked hard to reduce the number of layoffs required by arranging voluntary leaves of various types. We have also worked with our actuaries to identify key changes to the Air Canada pension plans that would give more flight attendants the option of early retirement.

What we want is the full cooperation from both the government and the company to sit down and work out the solutions. We need funding from the federal government but we don’t need much.

  • Less than $50 million would cover the cost of exit packages
  • Funding for work sharing and other initiatives can be covered by Employment Insurance programs, already funded by contributions from workers and employers.

Specific components of our plan include:

  • Voluntary severance packages
  • Early retirement enhancements
  • Work sharing and other EI measures
  • Special leaves for security and other training
  • Voluntary unpaid leaves
  • Voluntary layoffs
  • Re-open or extend education leaves
  • Unpaid Vacation

Background numbers

CUPE flight attendants at Air Canada……….8,200
Announced layoffs to flight attendants……….1,868
Number slated to be laid off October 3……….280
Number of positions where alternatives
to layoffs have already been identified……….
627