ALPA Canada Calls Out WestJet and Government of Canada on Use of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program
OTTAWA, ONT.—Captain Tim Perry, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA) Canada, today issued the following statement after WestJet Inc. received approval from the government of Canada to hire pilots through the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program to work at WestJet Encore:
“ALPA Canada is deeply concerned that WestJet Inc. is citing an inability to attract Canadian pilots to its airline as the rationale for hiring temporary foreign pilots to fill vacancies in their aircraft.
“This circumstance has been created by a management team that has failed to address the very real issue of career progression and job security for pilots within the Company. Their request to hire foreign pilots is problematic and short-sighted and will cause irreparable damage to labour relations. There are more practical solutions to attracting and retaining skilled professional pilots that do not involve utilizing a federal program that was never intended for this purpose.
“When it comes to the TFW Program, ALPA Canada calls on the government to include—as part of the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) process—consultation or engagement with unions representing employees affected by the hiring of TFWs.
“There should be considerations required when assessing highly skilled, licensed, unionized workers employed under terms set out through collective bargaining. In this case, the Program fails to encourage the employer, WestJet Inc., to address the reality of its internal labour issues in a meaningful way.“As we have said before, ALPA Canada supports legal immigration, which includes a stable pathway to citizenship, with labour mobility rights. However, we do not support the status of these employees in Canada when it is under the control and subject to the whims of an employer.”
Founded in 1931, ALPA is the largest airline pilot union in the world and represents more than 79,000 pilots at 42 U.S. and Canadian airlines. Visit ALPA.org or follow us on Twitter @ALPAPilots.
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CONTACT: ALPA Media, 703-481-4440 or Media@alpa.org
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