Air Canada has created a political and ideological dilemma for Jack Layton and his New Democrats. Given the airline’s customer service workers walked off the job Tuesday morning, the NDP is now between a rock and a hard place.
With their convention scheduled to begin Friday in Vancouver, the entire 103-member NDP caucus and all their staff face the prospect of crossing a picket line to board an Air Canada flight or flying on a non-unionized airline.
What to do?
Well, the political party that’s always insisted on flying on a unionized carrier, at least, during election campaigns, is taking a vacation from its beliefs, rebooking flights to British Columbia on WestJet, a non-unionized carrier (pensions? job security?).
“New Democrat staff and MPs will not cross picket lines to get to the convention,” Kathleen Monk, Mr. Layton’s director of communications, said Tuesday morning. “Flights are being booked on WestJet.”
When asked about flying a carrier that’s not unionized, Ms. Monk added that “with Air Canada on strike, the union [CAW] is encouraging us to secure other travel arrangements – be they by ground or flight.”
Ms. Monk said it is “not likely” that any MP will take a bus, train or car to British Columbia for the weekend.
commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
While the NDP can preach without practicing, its WestJet who practices
without preaching and who unlike Air Canada, have a relationship between
management and staff that Air Canada never had and most likely never will.
Air Canada's problems come from a systematic attitude of abuse of power, abuse
of employees. Just take a look at the faces of their employees, not that of the
management, look at the faces of the real front line workers at Air Canada and
WestJet and they tell another story of personalities and cults that makes
Westjet an example of collaboration and profit sharing that ends up with smiles
from one end to the other.
The NDP however live on promoting hatred , and at this approaching Father's Day,
bear in mind that Jack "the John" Layton never was and never will be a father.
Jack Layton has a long history of promoting hatred towards fathers and its that
factor that makes him one of the most dangerous politicians around. Bear that in
mind at the next election.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com