Dear Paul Moist President of CUPE National,

We, the undersigned, are Air Canada Component CUPE members and we urgently request your support in a matter of great significance to ourselves and our future as CUPE flight attendants.

Our ACCEX/Bargaining Committee (BC) gave Air Canada notice to bargain April 6, 2011, bargained for months, then filed for federal conciliation on June 3, 2011, and continued to bargain until August 1, 2011 when the BC proudly announced that a tentative agreement was reached.

During the following week of “standing-room-only” roadshows, the BC presented the tentative agreement (TA) to a membership that was against many aspects of the TA. Hour after hour, members lined up to seek clarification and speak against the vague language of new clauses in the TA, a missing LOU (LOU 35 aka the “me too clause” which was pointed out in the first Toronto roadshow and to which the BC showed obvious surprise and confusion), ineffectual improvements to working conditions especially concerning continuous duty day pairings and South American flying, and an increase of required monthly flying hours that was heavily weighed in the company's favour but was downplayed repeatedly during roadshows as not significant.

After nine roadshows of consistently negative and dissatisfied feedback that this TA was insufficient and vague, the BC continued to unanimously support the TA as it stood. We understand that the BC is legally bound to support this TA, however, Jeff Taylor as the Component President sent out an email to the membership on the first day of voting that urged us to vote YES (see attached: A Message from your Component President 2011/08/18). His arguments were unchanged compared to before the roadshows. Then, during the final week of voting the Component Officers Jeff Taylor and Lesley Swann, and the YYZ President John Reis campaigned at the YYZ Comm Centre strongly advocating a YES vote. This campaigning was unnecessary, and in our opinion, fear mongering. We had made it clear at every roadshow that we were dissatisfied with the TA and we were willing to fight for what we deserved.

As you are undoubtedly aware, CUPE flight attendants voted down the tentative agreement by 87.8% with an unprecedented voter participation of 78.6%

Mr Moist, we the CUPE flight attendants need CUPE National's support and help. We pay over a million dollars a year in union dues, and now we need to draw upon CUPE National's deep well of expert knowledge and experience. We are asking that you put the Component Executives under CUPE administration so that our Local Bases are still functional and operational.

It is clear: Our Component Executives Jeff Taylor, Lesley Swann, and Nick Beveridge are not serving the interests of our union membership. Despite over 36 hours of roadshows of predominantly negative reactions, the Component Executives still felt the need to undermine our solidarity by creating an environment of hopelessness and fear.

Mr Moist, we need your help. We are more unified than ever, and our AC Component Executives are neither serving our interests nor are they supporting us.

In solidarity,

Air Canada Component CUPE Flight Attendants