Concerns about job security in the wake of the merger between Continental and United Airlines led 41 Continental Customer Service agents in Toronto, to vote decisively for the IAM as the best way to protect their careers.
Representation elections for airline workers in Canada are guided by different laws than in the United States, where bargaining units include all members of a classification, regardless of which state they may work in.
“This is the first group of Continental employees in Canada to join the Machinists, and job security was foremost on their minds,” said District 78 Business Representative and Organizer Scott Jackson. “Another factor was the knowledge that unionized airline Service Agents earn considerably more than their non-union counterparts.”
