Retiring and Retired Airline Employee - Focus on Your Finances
Neufeld Legal P.C. can be reached by telephone at 905-616-8864 / 403-400-4092 or email Chris@NeufeldLegal.com
When your career with a Canadian airline has come to an end, you need to look beyond what you are being told by your employer and union, with legal advice that is exclusive to yourself, as a retiring or retired employee. As has been the case throughout your airline career, both your employer and union have been focused on their own commercial and legal interests, which have some alignment with your personal financial interests, yet has rarely, if ever, been fully committed to paying you all that you are legally entitled to. And for that very reason, when you have retired or are retiring from the airline business, you should be getting legal perspective from an employment lawyer that is fully committed to you and your financial interests.
Employment with Canadian airlines, from pilots to flight attendants to engineers to other airline employees*, has seen responsibility over employment matters largely transferred from employees to unions, which has been advantageous in many respects. Nevertheless, even with the increased power that has been afforded to the unions as the representative of all their union members, this did not assure airline employees that their union was capable of identifying and addressing every employment-related problem, especially where the union has failed to perceive the existence of the legal problem and/or has been intent on limiting the scope of its legal work to the most evident and contentious employment situations. And this is even more so where the unions have had a significant degree of responsibility in negotiating the employment arrangements, and unlike retired airline employees, the union must continue to co-exist with the airline and represent all the employees that remain employed by the airline. This in turn limits unions from seeking to upend relations with the airlines, unlike retired airline employees whose focus is exclusively on their personal financial future.
As a retiring or retired airline employee, you need to best secure your financial future and attain what you are legally entitled to, irrespective of the competing interests of your former employer or union, which means attaining independent legal advice that is separate and apart from the influences of former employer and union. For our own legal research and analysis of publicly-available documentation from Canadian airliines confirms, retired airline employees have not attained knowledgeable legal advice throughout their employment, or at its conclusion, when it comes to what they are legally due from their former employer. Instead, an airline employee's lawyer needs to understand the specific labour laws impacting airline retirees financially and how they can be manipulated and subverted to reduce or deny airline employees their full financial entitlement when their employment ends.
When you retire from your airline job, you should be making informed decisions with the benefit of knowledgeable and insightful legal advice, as opposed to merely accepting what you have been told by your former employer and union. For a free initial consultation and to learn how our law firm might improve your retirement outlook from your airline career,contact our law firm at Chris@NeufeldLegal.com or 905-616-8864 / 403-400-4092.
* Canadian airline employees that have unionized include pilots; flight attendants / cabin personnel; maintenance, ramp and cargo employees; finance employees; administrative and technical support employees; customer sales and service agents; crew schedulers; and dispatchers.This includes airline employees from Air Canada, Westjet, Porter Airlines, Jazz Aviation, Flair Airlines, Skyservice Business Aviation, Sunwest Aviation, Sunwing Airlines, Cargojet and a multitude of other airplane and helicopter aviation companies with Canadian-based employees.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This website is designed for general informational purposes. The site is not designed to answer specific questions about your individual situation or entitlement. Do not rely upon the information provided on this website as legal advice in respect of your individual situation nor use it as substitute for individual legal advice. If you want specific legal advice, you need to engage a lawyer under established legal engagement procedures that have been specifically agreed to by that lawyer.