April 12, 2002
Judy Darcy
National President
21 Florence Street
Ottawa, ON K2P 0W6 Via Fax
Dear Judy,
I am writing to you not only as the General Vice-President for Ontario but also as a CUPE member for the past 26 years. In all my years as an activist I have never seen a more heart breaking campaign than the one now underway by the beleaguered CUPE membership in the former Canadian Airlines component.
The treatment these members have received from our union is appalling. It is unconscionable that their plight has received scant attention at the National Executive Board. There are thousands of members who have raised legitimate concerns and they deserve better treatment.
The role our National union has played in allowing our former CAIL members to be disenfranchised of their seniority rights is shameful and embarrassing. It is also a clearly different position than the one CUPE put forth at the Canada Labour Relations Board in August of 1998 that highlighted the successful use of dovetailing seniority rights during the initial CAIL merger.
The following are excerpts from CUPE's case, argued on our union's behalf by counsel Michael Church are firm and concise in putting forth our position seniority rights:
"CUPE not only believes but also practices full and fair seniority integration. All Flight Attendants (from whatever bargaining unit they originally come from) are treated the same by CUPE once they are within CUPE bargaining units..
.Furthermore, the principles as set out above have been enshrined throughout the years in various policies adopted by the Union itself through the Airline Division of CUPE.it is actually fair to say that seniority is the most critical right for any member of an air crew in a bargaining unit in the airline industry.
.CUPE's position is that no Flight Attendants ought to suffer any loss of seniority or harm due to the intermingling of employees, merger of the companies etc."
It appears as though much has changed since these arguments were made at the federal labour board. While the weight of this issue deserves serious attention by our union, we have not devoted even five minutes of the National Executive Board meeting time to dealing with it.
This is a clear abdication of our responsibility to our members and the
excuse put forward, that the Airline components did not want CUPE National
to deal with this issue, is not a palatable response. We have an obligation
as a National union to ensure all our policies and procedures are upheld.
The principle of dovetailing seniority from date of hire is the standard by
hundreds of CUPE locals forced to, or voluntarily entering mergers. Indeed,
the Airline Division has a policy dating back over 10 years and which was
used in over a dozen airline mergers over that period of time.
We erred as a union, in allowing an affiliate, indeed funding an affiliate to go to arbitration on an issue of such great importance as "date of hire seniority rights", especially when the impacts of a bad ruling has profound repercussions that could set the entire labour movement back 50 years. But make no mistake about it, the Burkett Award is a major set back for all workers in all jurisdictions, not just in CUPE, but for the entire labour movement.
We have a duty to our members and a responsibility to other unions to correct our error and fight to overturn this disastrous interim award by Burkett. We can begin to rectify our mistakes by calling an emergency Executive Board meeting to ensure we, all the members of the board, are well briefed on this issue, so that as a board we can strategize on how best to proceed from here.
A meeting held over a two-day period would allow for delegations from the former CAIL membership and the Air Canada membership to make presentations to the National Executive Board. Allowing time for individual members to make presentations and share their most heart breaking of stories will go a long way to healing the rifts that have developed as a result of our union's inadequate handling of this issue.
I had hoped to make this suggestion to National Executive Board members at our meeting in February and again at our meeting yesterday, April 20, in Ottawa. Unfortunately, once again we ran out of time. And I am now following up with a formal request for you to call an emergency board meeting to deal solely with this issue.
In solidarity,
Patrick (Sid) Ryan
President