Air Traffic Specialists Association of Canada (Unifor Local 2245) represents approximately 600 Flight Service Specialists who work at and provide services at over 91 airports, either through 54 Airport Advisory Stations or 37 Remote Airport Advisory Services, five Flight Information Centres, one International Flight Service Station, providing services at 37 Remote Airport Advisory Services, enroute services over 18 million square kilometers of Canadian and North Atlantic airspace and work at various regional and national head offices throughout Canada.
In this round of negotiations, ATSAC is focusing on the following key issues:
- Work-life balance, through scheduling, with little variation on days of work and days of rest, as well as timely vacations and personal leave options.
- Fatigue management – where members can have a meaningful break during work hours.
- For Nav Canada to make employment competitive to improve retention, training, and job satisfaction.
- Protect members that may be impacted by the introduction of possible digital facilities and other new technology at work.
- Make sure the collective agreement is written in a gender-neutral way.
- Wages and premium increases to keep up with inflation.
- Job security
Air traffic specialists provide traffic information, vehicle control, weather observations, pre-flight weather briefings after interpreting charts, reports and satellite imagery, assist with flight plan filing and provide information to help pilots to safely land and take-off from controlled and uncontrolled airports. They also stay in contact with pilots during their flights, communicate safety updates, provide weather observations reports to Environment Canada forecasters for their predictions and trigger search and rescue activities for missing or overdue aircraft.
Air traffic specialists work closely with local airports management to ensure safety at every step of a flights.
ATSAC was first unionized under this acronym in 1996 but been unionized since the early 1990s. The current collective agreement expires on April 30, 2023.
