Air Canada passengers relieved, workers bitter about labour agreements ALLAN SWIFT Canadian Press Sunday, June 01, 2003 MONTREAL (CP) - Air Canada passengers are relieved but employees are bitter about a series of labour agreements concluded early Sunday that keeps the airline in the air. A deal with the airline's 3,150 mainline pilots announced early Sunday morning was the last of nine new union agreements that will cut thousands of jobs and wages as the Montreal-based airline struggles to emerge from bankruptcy protection. "I'm completely relieved, I'm glad to see that they came to a deal," said Air Canada flight attendant Rob Sheerratt Sunday, interviewed at Montreal's Dorval Airport. However Sheerratt, catching a smoke before leaving on a Tango flight to Vancouver, admits he is "ticked off" that an agreement late last week by his union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, will force flight attendants to work longer hours for less pay to help save his employer. "It's symptomatic of the country; we're shuffling workers into jobs (that are) part-time and for less money. I'm taking a wage cut so that Canadians can go to Hawaii cheaper, and that's against my bottom line, so that makes me angry," Sheerratt said. But the flight attendant added: "To save the company, I'm happy to do it." Traveller Ken Mason, on his way to Toronto, was less sympathetic to the airline's plight, and declared the government should not step in to help out if Air Canada can not resolve its chronic difficulties. "I'm relieved in the sense I can get home today . . . (but) I don't think Canada should keep alive the airline. Mason said the smaller and newer entrants like WestJet airlines and Jetsgo, a Montreal based airline that started flying a year ago, provide alternatives, and Canada could open up the skies to American or other foreign airlines. "I've flown Jetsgo and . . . certainly their service is great and their price is about a third (of Air Canada's)," Mason said Paul Leveille, on his way home to Winnipeg, has a completely different point of view, and believes the federal government should step in and help out Air Canada, a former Crown corporation that was privatized in the late 1980s. "I thought the privatization was a stupid move, especially to have an American running the damn place," said Leveille. The company's current president and chief executive Robert Milton, who was born in Boston but who has made Montreal his home for a decade now, is at least the third American-born CEO of Canada's largest airline. "I think he's (Milton) just basically arrogant and he doesn't take the culture of Canada into account when he's planning." Louis Deslauriers of Montreal, sending his son off to Cuba for a vacation, is happy the pilots reached a deal, but he's confident the government will not let anything happen to the dominant air carrier. "I'm relieved for my boy so he can get away; I'm not worried he won't get back, because if Air Canada shuts down, the government will charter aircraft to go to Cuba to bring everyone back. They won't leave Canadians in Cuba." Deslauriers also firmly believes the government should protect the company from bankruptcy, noting that it employs 40,000 people, before the most recent cuts, as well as affecting some 100,000 jobs indirectly. "If they all went on unemployment or welfare, that would cost the government a lot more." Tony Santelli, founder of Funtastique Travel, a chain of travel agencies based in Quebec, said he believes the airline will emerge a stronger company, now that it has ratified cost-cutting agreements will all its unionized and non-unionized employees. "I really think that now they're on the way to reshaping the airline and making it a go," said Santelli in an interview. "I think it will be the first and probably the benchmark for other national airlines to do the same, if this experiment works, and I don't see why it wouldn't. It's based on offering customers a low price by making sure it costs less to deliver the goods." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.natalielaughlin.com/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************