Michelle DaCruz
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 12/02) - Yellowknife's First Air flight attendants are the hardest hit company-wide due to the number of layoffs and the elimination of senior flight attendant positions, union officials say.

By moving their jet operations from Yellowknife to Edmonton, the company is shrinking its local flight attendant base from 40 full-time attendants to 17 by June 1. Ottawa will lose about 10 positions.

Also, Yellowknife's purser or senior flight attendant positions will be eliminated completely since turboprop aircraft flights will be the only flights remaining in town.

"Canadian aviation regulations... require an in-charge flight attendant on board when there are two or more attendants in the air... The turboprop flights only require one attendant," said Kevin Beaith, a purser and component president for the airline division of Canadian Union of Public Employees Locals 4040 and 4021.

"So ... they are dropping all the pursers out of Yellowknife," said Stephen Tomkins, president of CUPE Local 4021 in Yellowknife and Edmonton.

"On average that is a $13,000 drop in pay."

This will also eliminate room for advancement of flight attendants who are just on the cusp of becoming pursers in Yellowknife, according to Tomkins, an eight-year resident of Yellowknife, originally from Edmonton.

"I love the North, but the company is putting me in the position that if I want to advance I will have to leave," said Tomkins, a flight attendant who had hopes of becoming a purser.

The union is currently in negotiations with the company to persuade them to postpone the deadline date from June 1 to at least June 30.

This would allow the children of the families that agree to move to Edmonton to finish their school year in town.

The union handed the company a package of 42 questions on Tuesday. For instance, would First Air grant a purser's rate to flight attendants who have at least a decade of seniority?

Also, will the company grant requests for leave extension in order to avoid layoffs?

The answers were to come at a meeting Wednesday night, but the union did not return calls by Yellowknifer's deadline.

The union is convinced the company is moving its jet operations to Edmonton to avoid paying the higher Northern wages to compensate for the cost of living.

Beaith and Tomkins are also in meetings with Yellowknife officials this week, including Mayor Van Tighem, the Chamber of Commerce, the NWT Federation of Labour, and Finance Minister Joe Handley.

First Air's Ottawa-based vice-president of marketing and sales, Jim Ballingall, is out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

The union said they were aware in March that there were possibly 10 layoffs scheduled for Ottawa only, but were shocked at the company-wide plans that were announced last week.