Amidst bargaining, IMP Aerospace workers in Gander, N.L. are being forced to temporarily relocate to British Columbia. This was the biggest concern brought forward to Regional Executive Vice-President Chris Di Liberatore, while he toured the workplace in December.
PSAC has been hearing from worried members for a couple of months, revealing that IMP had requested volunteers to work at its location in Comox, B.C. When no volunteers came forward, the company selected employees with the least seniority to travel.
According to PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President Chris Di Liberatore, the employer contends that they can legally relocate workers using a memorandum of understanding to justify their request. However, Di Liberatore emphasized that the memorandum was established for emergency, short term, scenarios, not to staff another location because IMP cannot properly fill positions in B.C.
For the first time in its history, IMP in Gander is resorting to sending employees across the country to fill the company’s gap. The employer has even circulated a schedule that goes well into 2024, with no end in sight.
Local President Martin Coady expressed concern for the affected workers, emphasizing that they are predominantly young adults, some with young families, being forced to go for long periods of time, now leading up to the holiday season. Some also have medical reasons preventing them from traveling and are now seeking medical accommodation.
Mr. Coady emphasized the stress this is putting on the whole workplace, aerospace techs are actively looking for other work and retiring to avoid the leave.
Despite uprooting their lives just before Christmas, the relocated workers will receive the same wage, without any additional compensation. Coady pointed out that they are being forced to live out of hotels for weeks at a time.
The union is scheduled to continuing bargaining with IMP and believes that the staffing issue can be addressed by fairly compensating workers in B.C. and Gander. IMP would not be losing workers if they paid them a fair, comparable wage, instead of offering them less than what others in the aerospace industry make. Instead of employing this heavy-handed approach, and forcing workers out of province, IMP needs to actively recruit and staff their Comox location. This understaffing is putting Canadian lives at risk, as these mechanics are working every day to ensure that search and rescue helicopters are deployable. Pulling them from one coast to another means less workers on the east coast for emergencies here, and just filling the gaps on the west coast instead of comping up with long term solutions.