what's with all these protest?
 

First we had the teachers, the brown taxi drivers and now this.. Is our economy really going down?


VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Airplane machinists are rallying at Vancouver International Airport after finding out they lost their jobs with Aveos, the company that maintains Air Canada's fleet.

The machinists are blocking the departure area, waving signs that read, "Aircraft machinists RIP. Bill 33 not for me."

They tell News1130 they are frustrated and concerned with safety standards in foreign countries. If Aveos decides to move these jobs to countries such as El Salvador and China, the machinists are concerned about safety, as those countries don't necessarily follow the same guidelines we do in Canada.

A worker who's been in the business for 30 years says, "If they could force us to go back to work, we are willing to work, and for the benefit of the flying public."

Fred Hospes is with the union representing local machinists. "There are a lot of unanswered questions right now. We've been trying to contact Air Canada and Aveos. Aveos is not responding to any of our calls. We have not had any dialogue at this point in time with Air Canada."

He adds he could tell something was up at Aveos Fleet Performance because he says business decisions were being made that made no sense.

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/342492--more-than-250-airline-machinists-protesting-at-yvr?cid=dlvr.it
Posted via RS Mobile

I find it interesting that they are using 'concerned for the safety of the consumers' as their reason for protesting when clearly they are disgruntled with the lost their job because of the outsourcing. I'm not saying it's not a possible issue, but don't beat around the bush and act like it's for the greater good of mankind when it's obvious that they're just pissed cause they lost their job.

How pretentious can you get? They act like they're a special snowflake that no one can replace and we owe them the world because of what they do at their job.

I looked at their protest signs at the site and it seems like that union has a serious attitude problem.

Unions. :fuckthatshit:


Unions are nothing more than a bunch of children throwing temper tantrums.

The only group out of the three I agree with striking are the taxi drivers.
I can't believe how much they have to spend to become why?
I have no idea why anyone would want to pay $300k+ to own a cab???

Why are there protests? Shit man, its nothing new. Between a unionized work force and management structure, you are always going to have 2 sides to every issue. It's not new. Unions started by using extreme measures to force management to recognize them. That was a result of owners and management using extreme tactics to break the unions. Then they were painted with the commie brush.

If anything, its WAY tamer now than the good ole days of busting up the picket line with baseball bats.

So the techniques have changed, but the basic issues are there. You have a large group of people that actually do the work for a small share of the pie. Welcome to capitalism baby.

What's happening now that there are so many protests going on? Recession. The introduction of "the new normal" is, all these unions made concessions 3 years ago, and now want it back, where the companies are either legitimately not able to provide, or make it look like they cannot provide.

And the taxi drivers have been getting the shiv for years to be honest. The taxi industry is really over-regulated and just a brutal way to make a living, but without some of the regs, would end up being 50 cars per corner fighting over a 30 cent fare. They flare up every once and awhile asking for some type of change, but usually go away. I'm not sure what they get told to put them back in line.

I can agree with Taxi Drivers because they work 12+ hours for peanuts.

But let's not forget, NURSES UNION is also about to go on strike for a "Health & Safety risk" inside our hospitals. Yet I can agree with them because they are asking for HELP. NOT MONEY. They just want more nurses so the load is carried over. Which I can find reasonable.

i dont agree with them at all....whats stopping them from getting a job in physical labor? its their choice to sit on their butts and drive all day..

ive no clue why anyone would pay 300k to own a taxi either...seems rather silly to me.

Are you in the aviation industry? Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

I can tell you I'd be more nervous being on an airline out of Indonesia somewhere then I would be on an Air Canada flight.

Aveos machinists kind of have a point though... outsourcing of airplane maintenance to places like El Salvador or China is a dangerous idea

don't know about you, but i'd much rather the plane I sit in 30,000ft in the air to have been maintained in Canada than China

The risk of dying in an airline crash (regardless of whether its Asian, African, European, North American) is so low that I don't see "safety" as a significant reason not to outsource to foreign countries.

For example, odds of being killed in one of top 30 airlines: 1 in 29 million
odds of being killed in one of worst 30 airlines: 1 in 1.7 million

Even delta outsource their planes to HAECO in hk, safety is possibly the least of our concerns. The outsourcing may go to Western aviation companies with operations in other nations to circumvent the tax .

my wife is a nurse & was in the ICU at children's & she used to tell me how bad it gets sometimes. some of the things she told me...
:rukidding::seriously::fulloffuck:

I am one of the thousands that's laid-off from Aveos. There is a reason why there are unions, its to prevent corporate companies from fucking everyone over. You would maybe understand why unions are helpful when you being fucked over, especially by large corporations.

We as Aircraft Maintenance Engineer are underpaid in Canada. We are licensed through Transport Canada, the government. I don't think the general public knows what we do, since we are not a front line staff. We are liable for all the work we perform and sign on an aircraft. If a plane crashes, and the investigation finds that we messed up, we can go to jail, and loose everything. It's not like you can pull a plane over on the side of the road when a check engine light comes on, or if something breaks.

Also the work that is done in Canada is much better. When an airplane comes out of a heavy check, quality is seen through how many "snags" are written up. When an airplane comes out of foreign facilities, there are tons of snags written by the cabin crew. While a planes comes out of a Canadian facility, there are none or very very little.

speaking of protests i seen that the occupy vancouver folks set up camp in front of the cbc building. Walked by a little while ago and they had riot cops and a window was clearly smashed. I've had enough with these hippies and their grocery list of demands that can never be met. Really undermines the more important issues at hand right now.

After watching the news last night on this topic, I can see how the machinists got shafted by getting laid off with no notice and no severence. Yet things like this will happen. I've seen it before and lived through it once, and it's a shitty deal.

The one thing I don't appreciate is the workers deciding to ruin EVERYBODIES DAY BY BLOCKING THE DEPATURE RAMP AT YVR. Ruining the public's day doesn't help you or anybody. Honestly I would've had the police fine each person for a public disturbance. It's rude, and disrespectful to not let anybody get on their planes because you lost your job.

Childish, very childish. You lost your jobs so you block the departure ramp and give a hard time to anybody trying to board their planes. :rukidding:

Would we be talking about it if you saw a bunch of the workers on the side of the road grabbing their ankles saying, "this is how I take it when my company gives it to me"?

I haven't read a lot about it, but I can imagine that Air Can is just not going to follow them to El Salvador or wherever so they will just switch their contract to another company.

I think their fear is the possibility of Air Can going with them, and others following suit.

That's actually for filming for Continuum, they are shooting a riot/protest scene.

Too soon.

I don't care.

"What's with all these protests?"

Smaller size of the pie and everyone wants a bigger slice of their pie share. Oh and yes, Unions.. :spamarama: