Travellers at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) could face disruptions after negotiations between some of the airport’s refuelling supervisors and their employer fell through Sunday night.
Last week, 21 workers sat down with their Paris-based employer Servisair, which provides fuelling services to Air Canada and WestJet, to negotiate a collective agreement for the first time.
The employees weren’t previously unionized so the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees stepped in to negotiate on their behalf.
The union and Servisair were at the bargaining table for several days last week, said Stephen Dunsmore, the union’s regional vice-president pacific. On Friday, Servisair issued a 72-hour lockout notice after it failed to reach an agreement with employees.
The union presented a proposal to Servisair on Sunday, said Dunsmore, but the company walked away from the table without a response.
Servisair could not be reached for comment by press time.
“It’s a bizarre situation,” Dunsmore told BIV. “This is an employer with thousands of people and they’re not pleased that 21 would like some control over their working environment.”
The situation comes a few months after a similar labour dispute at YVR between Servisair and the workers who do the actual refuelling.
Dunsmore said this time around the supervisors of those refuellers want their own collective agreement.
The union said Servisair plans to bring in refuelling supervisors from other airports to fill the lockout positions until an agreement can be reached.
Dunsmore called the move to fly in temporary replacement workers an “extremely expensive proposition.”
Said Dunsmore: “The employer could have said yes to absolutely everything the employees wanted in bargaining and it would still cost them less.”