Toronto Airport Authority imposes injunctions on striking ground crew
By
Lee Parsons and Roger Jordan
9 September 2017
Following a rally at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport by around 250 striking Swissport ground crew on Sunday, the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA) has intensified its strikebreaking efforts by imposing a series of injunctions on the workers. Strikers told the World Socialist Web Site that they have been prevented from protesting at one of the terminals and denied the right to display their strike badges in the terminal. A striker also pointed out that the union is doing nothing to challenge these flagrantly anti-democratic restrictions.
Workers at Swissport, one of the world’s largest airline service providers, have been on strike for over a month in opposition to the company’s attempts to further slash their already inadequate wages and gut working conditions. The GTAA, which is owned by the Canadian government, has done everything in its power to assist Swissport to break the strike, including by facilitating the employment of untrained strikebreakers, which has resulted in countless safety breaches.
A striking baggage handler told the WSWS that workers from Teamsters Local 419 and their supporters gathered at Terminal 3 Sunday afternoon before proceeding to the on-ramp at Terminal 1. “We just shut that whole terminal down so there was no traffic for the traveling public for about 15 to 20 minutes,” he explained. A rally was held at Terminal 1, before the protesters began a march back to Terminal 3. “We kept going to the on-ramp and stopped traffic again for about two hours and it was forced to go back to the 401 [highway],” he added.
The worker reported significant support from travelers entering the airport, in spite of…