Tensions are rising as a potential pilot strike or lockout at Canada’s largest airline is just days away, with no signs of progress in negotiations.

Several business groups, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, are planning an event in Ottawa today to push the government to act after calling for binding arbitration in an open letter.

Air Canada announced earlier this week that a work stoppage is becoming increasingly possible as negotiations with the union continue to stall.

According to the Canadian Press, unless an agreement is reached, either party may issue a 72-hour strike or lockout notice as early as Sunday, potentially leading to a complete work stoppage as early as September 18.

Air Canada said Monday that an agreement is still possible if the Air Line Pilots Association reduces its “excessive” compensation expectations.

The union claimed that corporate greed was stifling negotiations, as Air Canada continues to generate record profits while expecting pilots to accept below-market pay.

According to a new assessment by the Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec, the anticipated labour disruption at Air Canada may cost the economy $1.4 billion.

Air Canada Dream Liner – File Image

Canada’s Largest Airline

Economists Randall Bartlett and LJ Valencia predict that a two-week pilot strike at Canada’s largest airline might result in daily losses of approximately $98 million, a 0.06 percent month-over-month loss to real GDP in September.

“Because of its outsized role in the Canadian airline market, a prolonged pilot strike could negatively impact economic activity,” according to the researchers.

The number of passengers could fall by 2.1 million, a 29% decrease from the previous month, they said.

Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge operate around 670 daily flights, carrying more than 110,000 passengers throughout Canada and overseas it is Canada’s largest cargo airline in terms of capacity.

Business organisations expressed “deep concern” on Wednesday about the upcoming pilot strike, claiming it will drastically disrupt Canada’s supply chain.

“The potential for a labour disruption is alarming, given the far-reaching implications for Canadians, the nation’s economy, supply chains, and our global reputation,” stated a letter signed by 41 business groups and 53 local chambers of commerce.

The group planned to attend a press conference in Ottawa on Thursday to encourage the federal government to take measures to avoid potential labour disruptions.

Air Canada Pilots – Getty Images

Last Air Canada pilot strike

The Desjardins economists said their estimate envisions a two-week strike, similar to the last significant Air Canada pilot strike in September 1998. Air Canada’s losses were projected at $200 million at the time, which is equivalent to $355 million now.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters on Thursday that we will “never support” back-to-work legislation as an Air Canada pilot strike approaches and concerns rise over a work stoppage.

“We’re going to send a clear message again that we are opposed to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, or any government, interfering with workers,” he said during his party’s caucus conference in Montreal.

Singh continued, “If any proposals relating to back-to-work legislation are tabled, we would reject them. We’ll fight back against that. We will never support back-to-work.

Unless a deal is reached by Sunday, Air Canada or the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents 5,200 Air Canada pilots, may issue a 72-hour lockout or strike notice.

Air Canada president and CEO Michael Rousseau said in a statement that there was still time to negotiate an agreement with the pilots, and that the company will do all possible to safeguard its customers from a more inevitable work stoppage.

Air Canada Express flights will continue to operate, with third-party carriers Jazz and PAL Airlines providing these services. However, these regional partners transport only around 20% of Air Canada’s daily clients, with many of them eventually connecting on Air Canada aircraft.

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Alexandria, Virginia – One month after a judge branded Google’s search engine an illegal monopoly, the internet titan is facing another antitrust lawsuit, this time over its advertising technology, which threatens to split the firm.

The Justice Department, joined by a coalition of states, and Google each presented opening arguments Monday before a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, which will decide whether Google has a monopoly on internet advertising technology.

The regulators argue that Google created, acquired, and maintains a monopoly on the technology that connects internet publishers and advertisers. The government claims that Google’s dominance of the software on both the buy and sell sides of the transaction allows it to keep up to 36 cents per dollar when it brokers sales between publishers and advertising.

Google Faces A New Antitrust Trial After Ruling Declaring Search Engine A Monopoly

They argue that Google also dominates the ad exchange market, which connects the purchase and sale sides.

“A single monopoly is terrible enough. But we have a trifecta of monopolies,” Justice Department lawyer Julia Tarver Wood said in her opening statement.

Google claims that the government’s case is based on an internet of the past when desktop computers prevailed and internet users meticulously typed precise World Wide Web addresses into URL fields. Advertisers are increasingly turning to social media platforms like TikTok and streaming TV services like Peacock.

In her opening comments, Google lawyer Karen Dunn compared the government’s evidence to a “time capsule with a Blackberry, an iPod, and a Blockbuster video card.”

Dunn stated that Supreme Court precedents caution judges about “the serious risk of error or unintended consequences” when dealing with quickly evolving technology and determining whether antitrust law demands involvement. She also cautioned that any action taken against Google would not benefit small businesses, but would instead allow other tech behemoths such as Amazon, Microsoft, and TikTok to fill the gap.

According to Google’s annual reports, revenue for Google Networks, the division of the Mountain View, California-based tech giant that includes services like AdSense and Google Ad Manager at the heart of the case, has decreased in recent years, from $31.7 billion in 2021 to $31.3 billion in 2023.

The case will now be handled by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who is best known for high-profile terrorism cases, notably the one involving 9/11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. Brinkema, on the other hand, has prior expertise with highly complex civil trials, having worked in a courthouse that handles a large number of patent infringement cases.

The Virginia case follows Google’s significant defeat over its search engine. A judge in the District of Columbia deemed the search engine a monopoly, supported in part by tens of billions of dollars. Google pays firms like Apple each year to ensure that Google is the default search engine offered to customers when they purchase iPhones and other devices.

In December, a judge ruled that Google’s Android app store is a monopoly in a dispute brought by a private gaming company.

In the search engine case, the judge has yet to impose any remedies. The government has not proposed any fines, but there may be strict scrutiny over whether Google should be permitted to continue making exclusivity deals that ensure its search engine is the default option for customers.

According to Peter Cohan, a professor of management practice at Babson College, the Virginia case could be more devastating to Google because the obvious solution would be to require it to give off parts of its ad tech company, which generates billions of dollars in income each year.

“Divestitures are definitely a possible remedy for this second case,” according to Cohan. “It could be potentially more significant than initially meets the eye.”

Google is also under increasing pressure over its ad tech business on both sides of the Atlantic. British competition officials accused the corporation last week of abusing its control in the country’s digital ad industry by prioritizing its services. Last year, European Union antitrust authorities conducting their investigation concluded that breaking up the corporation was the only way to address competition concerns regarding its digital ad business.

The prosecution’s witnesses in the Virginia trial will include executives from newspaper publishers, whom the government claims have suffered disproportionately as a result of Google’s tactics.

“Google extracted extraordinary fees at the expense of the website publishers who make the open internet vibrant and valuable,” government lawyers stated in court documents.

The government’s first witness was Tim Wolfe, an official with Gannett Co., a newspaper company whose main publication is USA Today. According to Wolfe, Gannett believes it has little choice but to continue using Google’s ad tech tools, even though the business keeps 20 cents on the dollar from each ad transaction, not including what it charges advertisers. He stated that Gannett cannot give up access to Google’s vast network of advertising.

Google Faces A New Antitrust Trial After Ruling Declaring Search Engine A Monopoly

During cross-examination, Wolfe admitted that, despite Google’s alleged monopoly, Gannett was able to collaborate with other competitors to offer its available inventory to advertisers.

The government’s case also seeks to leverage the remarks of Google employees against them. In their opening statements, Justice Department lawyers noted an email received by a Google employee that questioned if Google’s control of the technology on all three sides constituted “a deeper issue” to examine.

“The analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange),” said employee Jonathan Bellack.

Google claims that integrating its technology on the buy, sell, and intermediate sides ensures that adverts and web pages load swiftly while also improving security.

Google claims that the government’s case is overly focused on display ads and banner ads that appear on web pages viewed via a desktop computer, failing to account for consumers’ shift to mobile apps and the surge in ads posted on social media sites over the last 15 years.

The government’s argument “focusses on a limited type of advertising viewed on a narrow subset of websites when user attention migrated elsewhere years ago,” Google’s lawyers argued in a court filing.

The experiment is planned to last a few weeks.

SOURCE | AP

Boeing waited to learn Thursday whether 33,000 aircraft assembly workers, the majority of whom are based in the Seattle region, would go on strike and halt production of the company’s best-selling jets.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers were voting on whether to accept a contract offer that included a 25% salary increase over four years. If the manufacturing workers reject the contract and two-thirds vote to strike, the work stoppage will begin Friday at 12:01 a.m. PDT.

Boeing Factory Workers Are Voting Whether To Strike And Shut Down Aircraft Production

A walkout would not result in flight cancellations or have a direct impact on airline passengers, but it would be another blow to Boeing’s reputation and finances in a year marked by issues in its aircraft, defense, and space divisions.

New CEO Kelly Ortberg made a last-ditch effort to avoid a strike Wednesday, assuring machinists that “no one wins” in a walkout.

“For Boeing, it is no secret that our business is in a difficult period, in part due to our own mistakes in the past,” Mr. Musk said. “Working together, I know that we can get back on track, but a strike would put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together.”

According to Boeing, the machinists earn an average of $75,608 per year, not including overtime, and this figure will climb to $106,350 at the end of the four-year deal.

Although the contract’s negotiating committee recommended ratification, IAM District 751 President Jon Holden predicted earlier this week that workers would vote to strike. Many of them have made complaints about the agreement on social media.

Voting began at 5 a.m. local time at union halls in Washington state, Portland, Oregon, and a few other sites, with results anticipated late Thursday.

A strike would halt production of the company’s best-selling airliner, the 737 Max, as well as the 777 or “triple-seven” jet and the 767 cargo plane, at plants in Everett and Renton, Washington, near Seattle. It is unlikely to affect Boeing 787 Dreamliners, which are produced in South Carolina by nonunion workers.

Based on Boeing’s strike history, TD Cowen aerospace analyst Cai von Rumohr believes a walkout might stretch until mid-November, when workers’ $150 weekly payments from the union’s strike fund may appear low heading into the holidays.

According to von Rumohr, a strike that lasts that long may lose Boeing up to $3.5 billion in cash flow because the corporation receives roughly 60% of the sale price when it delivers a plane to the buyer.

Union negotiators unanimously urged workers to endorse the provisional deal signed over the weekend.

Boeing has vowed to manufacture its next new airliner in the Puget Sound area. That airliner, which isn’t due until the 2030s, would replace the 737 Max. That was a significant victory for union leaders, who want to avoid a repeat of Boeing shifting Dreamliner production from Everett to South Carolina.

However, the agreement fell short of the union’s initial demand for 40% wage increases over three years. The union also wanted to reinstate traditional pensions, which were eliminated a decade ago but settled for an increase in Boeing contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement plans.

Boeing Factory Workers Are Voting Whether To Strike And Shut Down Aircraft Production

Holden told members on Monday that the union had achieved everything it could in negotiations and suggested that the contract be approved “because we can’t guarantee we’ll be able to achieve more through a strike.”

Many union members, however, are still resentful of earlier concessions on pensions, health care, and compensation.

“They’re upset. They desire so much stuff. “I believe Boeing understands this and wishes to satisfy a significant number of them,” said aerospace analyst von Rumohr. “The question is, are they going to do enough?”

Boeing’s reputation suffered when two 737 Max airliners crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 passengers. The safety of its goods was called into question again after a panel on a Max blew out during a trip in January.

SOURCE | AP