MONTREAL – Canadian Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab A220 jet assembly employees will resort to new strategies that would slow production, after electing on Sunday to discard a proposed agreement and give strike approval, a union member said.
About 99 percent of the roughly 1,000 employees represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Employees (IAM) voted against the agreement, and gave strike approval, said Eric Rancourt, a union representative for the talks.
While the agreement directive does not associate with a real strike, the election indicates displeasure between the estimated 1,300 Montreal-area employees who assemble Airbus’s smallest commercial jet in Mirabel, Quebec.
The discussions have elevated tensions at a period when Airbus is trying to raise A220 production while dropping the cost of the money-losing project, even as it drives a wide-ranging wave of orders from airlines managing a rebound in travel requests from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Union campaigns to come back to the bargaining table will coincide with the initiation of pressure strategies that would slow manufacture, Rancourt told Reuters after the vote, with no further details.
An additional assembly line in Mobile, Alabama also produces the A220.
Airbus’s Canadian division informed in an emailed report that it recognized the vote consequences and will stay committed to merging the welfare of our employees with the economic necessities of the A220, to find an arrangement that “uniforms both parties.”
The plane maker informed its preliminary offer had been presented to the union, subsequent open discussions for a few months and considering the current context of the A220, which has not yet touched the break-even point.
The contract offered roughly a 10% raise over 3 years and would have eliminated certain retirement benefits. The union has not revealed a precise demand for wages.
We are not going to agree to go backward,” Rancourt said. We need to enhance our working conditions.
Rancourt said the union needs to reach an agreed contract and evade a strike if possible. “It rests on the employer’s attitude.”
The union’s agreement expired in December.
Unions have lately exploited constricted labor markets and inflation to win substantial contracts at the negotiating table, with airline pilots, auto workers, and others recording big raises in 2023.
