Laval (Saturday, May 7, 2022) – The members of IAMAW Local Lodge 712 from the Stelia Aeronautique Saint-Laurent unit have accepted the second employer offer by a margin of 63.9%.
“It was not an easy negotiation,” explains Éric Rancourt, Business Representative for IAM District 11, who led the negotiations. “Our members expected more. Now, we expect the employer to invest in the Mirabel plant and increase production of the A-220”.
The pension plan, salary clauses and work-life balance, via modified schedules, were among the main issues in this negotiation.
“At the start of the negotiations, the employer wanted to eliminate the defined benefit pension plan,” says Éric Rancourt. “We had long discussions to make sure we didn’t lose that. We finally found a way to use a different mechanism to maintain the members’ defined benefit status. We proved that by talking to each other we can find winning solutions.”
The contract, which includes a consumer price index (CPI) adjustment measure, provides for salary increases of up to 18.9% over 6 years. The salary bonus, in the form of deferred compensation, will gradually increase from $1.35 to $1.60 per hour worked over the duration of the contract. Finally, the new contract includes the maintenance of a defined benefit pension plan.
On March 20, 2022, the members of the Stelia Saint-Laurent unit unanimously rejected the first employer offer in addition to giving themselves a strike mandate of 99.5%.
Within the Airbus family, Stelia Aeronautics Saint-Laurent is a major supplier of the A220 program. Members of Stelia Aeronautics Saint-Laurent manufacture the cockpits as well as certain sections of the fuselage for the A220 final assembly plants in Mirabel and Mobile, Alabama. A strike would therefore have paralyzed the production of the two final lines.
In February 2020, Stelia acquired operations on the A220 belonging to Bombardier. It is in this context that Stelia Aeronautics Saint-Laurent was born.
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