January 13, 2021
Member Weekly Update
As all of you are aware, on November 27, 2020, CATCA was served with notice on a Friday afternoon that NAV Canada was invoking Article 33 and giving the Union written notice that there may be potential job displacements. As soon as this notice was received, CATCA immediately pressed the employer for information and dates to begin meaningful consultation as required by the collective agreement. Despite these requests, little information was provided. Only one very short consultation date was provided in which NAV Canada did not provide information, and CATCA was allowed to ask questions only. In spite of that first call, CATCA continued to work intensely over this period of time, attempting to consult meaningfully. Unfortunately, NAV Canada did not provide any further dates to do so and instead moved to serve vulnerable and surplus letters to 49 of our members and colleagues on December 9, 2020. Of those, all but one was either located in Gander, Moncton or Montreal. This has caused a great deal of distress in those regions. We are deeply troubled by the implications for mental health and air navigation safety, and CATCA has made that abundantly clear to NAV Canada.
Throughout December, CATCA continued to lobby the Company to reconsider their original course of action and to work with CATCA collaboratively to look for solutions to help everyone weather this period of time until the restrictions caused by COVID-19 start to ease and air traffic returns. Unfortunately, NAV Canada generally remained uninterested in working together and was breaching; in our view, many requirements of the collective agreement.
As such, CATCA had no choice but to begin filing grievances on behalf of the membership. In that regard, on December 22 and 23, 2020, grievances were filed under multiple articles of the collective agreement alleging failure by the company to follow the requirements agreed to by the parties in good faith in our recent round of bargaining, which concluded in 2020. These included grievances under Articles 4, 5, 10, 31, 32 and 33. Under the provisions in Article 11 of the collective agreement, NAV Canada has 30 days to respond to these grievances, and we are currently in the midst of that timeline. However, given the seriousness of the situation, we had hoped that we would have received a response from NAV Canada by now, but we have yet to receive any further correspondence on any of the grievances.
While we wait for replies, and without prejudice to our rights as asserted in the current grievances and any future grievances or complaints, CATCA continues to work tirelessly to canvass options and convince the company that working together on solutions in lieu of serving surplus notices will always be the better solution for all parties, both in the short-term and the long-term. While we continue these talks, we are actively pursuing other avenues to challenge the company’s decision, including the filing of an unfair labour practice complaint and further grievances. We expect to have further information for our members on these additional actions very soon.
In the meantime, please know that we are leaving no stone unturned in working to protect our members’ rights and jobs and will continue to do so throughout these unprecedented times. We are aware that members want to know what is happening as much as is possible, and so beginning today, we intend to provide all CATCA members with weekly updates every Wednesday, regardless of whether there is substantive new information or not. And of course, if you require assistance at any time, your regional RVP and Branch Chairs are available to you. Please do not hesitate to contact them. We also remind you that the EAP service remains available to you – please never hesitate to use this service if you feel you need support (click here or here).
On Behalf of the Executive Board;
Doug Best Scott Loder
President Executive Vice President
Click here for the PDF.