Porter flight dispatchers could strike in January as union backs job action
Global News
The Canadian Airline Dispatchers Association said Wednesday that 100 per cent of its 36 Porter members have voted in favour of strike action.
The union representing flight dispatchers at Porter Airlines says it will be in a legal position to strike on Jan. 20 if it doesn’t reach a contract deal, after members voted unanimously in favour of job action this week.
The Canadian Airline Dispatchers Association (CALDA) said Wednesday that 100 per cent of its 36 Porter members voted in favour of strike action, citing “a lack of respect” by the airline during bargaining.
The two sides have been negotiating what would be the flight dispatchers’ first collective agreement since joining CALDA over 14 months ago.
Negotiations are currently in the final stages of conciliation with the help of federal mediators, a process that CALDA’s incoming national president Mark Yezovich told Global News will end on Dec. 29.
Yezovich said in an email Friday that there will then be a 21-day cooling-off period that ends Jan. 19, 2026. If a tentative agreement still isn’t reached by then, he said the union will be “in a legal strike position” beginning at 12:01 a.m. eastern on Jan. 20.
“Porter continues to offer no meaningful improvements to our members’ work rules,” he said in a follow-up email. “Since announcing the results of the strike vote, we have not met with the company.”
Yezovich said one more meeting between the two sides with federal mediators is scheduled for Monday, but “no further negotiation sessions have been agreed upon” as of Friday.
“We would like to reiterate that we remain fully committed to achieving a meaningful collective agreement at the bargaining table,” he said. “However, we urge Porter to engage in negotiations in a serious and constructive manner.”
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