Slowly but Surely
By Capt. Tim Perry, ALPA Canada President
As I begin my third term as ALPA Canada president, I’m heartened to say that—slowly but surely, much like the pace of our border reopening—things are getting back to normal. Or at least, a new normal after the pandemic and the havoc it wreaked on our industry. Last year was remarkable, with a rapid recovery in the travel sector. With it, we saw increases to our work schedules to levels not seen since before the pandemic. We’re standing here today because of perseverance, strength, fortitude, and resilience. ALPA members never gave up.
To be honest, I’m tired of talking about COVID, so with this column I just won’t. My only comment on the subject is this: We’ve been through something extraordinary together and whatever we do going forward, let’s make sure our experience strengthens us collectively, rather than letting it sow divisions between us.
After phenomenal growth from 2019 through 2021, ALPA Canada and its pilot groups continued efforts on a number of key areas from negotiating first contracts and new contracts to laying the groundwork for significant further membership growth in 2023.
Let me be clear—in Canada our union has grown. Thanks to the growth of the past four years, we now represent almost 6,500 Canadian pilots in 17 pilot groups, with those numbers increasing just about daily. What’s more, ALPA Canada has grown as well. At the last Board of Directors meeting, the board approved changes to ALPA’s administrative structure, removing the executive vice president (EVP) duties for Canadian pilot groups from my plate and creating a new position for the Executive Council that is solely the EVP for Canadian pilot groups—providing ALPA Canada a stronger voice in this important group. Congratulations to Capt. Claude Buraglia (Jazz Aviation) for his election to this position.
In addition to our growth, we achieved many successes in 2022. I want to again thank everyone who played a part in ensuring the Pivot Airlines flight crew, including our fellow ALPA members, made it home safe from the Dominican Republic this past December after nearly eight months of detainment. ALPA Canada worked extremely hard through all available means and diplomatic channels, and we’re all happy to have this behind us.
We ended 2022 on a high note, as PAL Airlines and Flair Airlines pilots ratified their first-ever collective agreements in the closing months, and WestJet opened negotiations. We remain hard at work with some of our Exchange Income Corporation-owned airlines, as Perimeter Aviation and Bearskin Airlines pilots close in on three years of negotiations with management continuing to drag out bargaining—with much the same at Air Borealis as management has been similarly averse to taking the pilots’ legitimate and fair-minded demands seriously.
Legislatively, we continue to work closely with the Canadian government on our top priorities. While we were disappointed in its lack of consultation with industry and labour on anything pandemic-related, we remained in contact regarding the border reopening process, and we look forward to engaging with government in the coming year on
- the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP),
- pilot supply,
- flight- and duty-time regulations/fatigue risk management systems,
- nonpassenger screening, and
- antiscab and maintenance of activities (essential service) legislation.
ALPA Canada earned a major victory regarding TFWP in late 2022 as—thanks to pressure from our Calls to Action and lobbying—Sunwing Airlines withdrew its ill-conceived application to hire temporary pilots when, we maintain, this is a pilot attraction and retention issue. Sunwing was attempting to staff the airline with temporary foreign workers to replace the hundreds of pilots leaving for jobs that offer a competitive market wage. While we don’t represent the Sunwing pilots, we know that this horse must not be allowed to leave the barn or it will negatively impact our members as well over time.
Action is needed in several critical areas to attract Canadians to the profession and keep them in Canada, and we need to start now.
On that note, together, let’s do more to make our union and our industry more diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive to all. We need female-friendly flight decks. We need our pilots to be representative of the people from all the places we fly from coast to coast to coast and beyond. As I’ve often said, we each do better when we all do better. Here’s to a better 2023 for all.
