MONTREAL — Pilots at Jazz Air (TSX:JAZ.UN) have voted 99 per cent in favour of a legal strike if necessary to reach a new contract.
No strike deadline has been set by the Jazz Master Executive Council, which represents the pilots, but a mandatory cooling-off period is set to expire in mid-June.
Union head Brian Shury says the pilots don’t want to go on strike but that they have been without a contract for almost a year.
Jazz was spun off as an independent company in September 2004 as part of the court-supervised restructuring of Air Canada.
Shury says the pilots have been subject to a bankruptcy-era contract since 2004 and that Jazz is negotiating as if it were still in bankruptcy.
Halifax-based Jazz Air Income Fund (TSX:JAZ.UN) has said it has reached deals with some of its unions, but is still negotiating with several others, including the pilots.