Aveos job losses spur class-action suit

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/04/2016 (3754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Former airplane maintenance workers who lost their jobs four years ago with the demise of Air Canada’s spinoff company Aveos Fleet Performance have filed a $1-billion class-action lawsuit against the airline, and the governments of Quebec and Canada.

The suit was filed in Quebec Superior Court and is seeking payment for lost income as well as punitive and non-punitive damages. It alleges the airline and the governments are responsible for harming former Aveos workers by their “flagrant and deliberate violation” of the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Aveos was created by Air Canada to do heavy maintenance work on its fleet of planes. Most of the work was done in Winnipeg, Montreal, Mississauga and Vancouver. In 2012, Aveos went belly up, and 2,600 people were thrown out of work, including 400 in Winnipeg, and 1,800 in Montreal.

The act, passed in 1988 as the airline was privatized, required Air Canada to maintain operation centres in Winnipeg, Montreal and Mississauga. But when Aveos went out of business, the airline shipped those jobs elsewhere, many of them out of the country.

Air Canada argued because it still had line maintenance workers in those cities the airline was not violating the law. Quebec and Manitoba disagreed the former filed a lawsuit against the airline. Manitoba was an intervener in the case. A Quebec court sided with the provinces, and that decision was upheld on appeal. The case was destined for the Supreme Court of Canada but the airline negotiated settlements with the two provinces.

In both Winnipeg and Montreal, Air Canada will establish maintenance centres of excellence, and in Quebec, the airline has also committed to a maintenance contract on the Quebec-made C-Series jets Air Canada intends to purchase.

In return, Quebec and Manitoba are withdrawing their legal challenges.

Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau has introduced changes to the legislation to give Air Canada more leeway about the type and amount of maintenance work it must have in Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario.

A former Winnipeg Aveos worker told the Free Press Tuesday all of that was done in “backroom deals” that mean little to the workers who lost their jobs. Many never found jobs with similar wages, he said, asking his name not be used.

He said the agreement with Manitoba talked about up to 150 jobs in 2017, as the airline has contracts with three companies to do work in Winnipeg. Two of those companies will be new to the city; a third already has a Winnipeg operation.

But the former employee of Aveos said the new law means Air Canada doesn’t have to create a single new job in Manitoba.

Manitoba is not named in the class-action suit. The suit says the Quebec government promoted its own interests in settling with Air Canada, and the federal government has taken Air Canada’s side.

A spokesman for the airline declined to discuss the class-action suit, saying only Air Canada has come to an agreement with Quebec and Manitoba and the federal government is changing the law.

— with files from The Canadian Press

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca