Security layoffs at Pearson airport spark worries of longer lines

OTTAWA—Almost 300 security screeners are being laid off at Pearson International Airport, a move that is sparking worries about longer lines for passengers and raising questions about safety, the Star has learned.

Transport Minister Denis Lebel has been warned that cutting the ranks of security screeners by almost 20 per cent at Canada’s busiest airport will have a direct impact on service — perhaps even aviation security.

“The reduction of hours has the potential of compromising the safety and security of the travelling public,” Toronto lawyer Denis Ellickson wrote Lebel on Tuesday.

“The current complement of screening officers is barely adequate to manage the current traffic flow.”

Ellickson represents the Canadian Airport Workers’ Union, which received official word this week that for the second time in less than a year, screeners at Pearson airport were being cut.

In a Tuesday memo to staff, Garda Security Solutions — the private company with the contract to provide airport screeners at Pearson — says it is planning a “temporary” lay off of 299 junior employees effective Jan. 25, 2011.

That’s on top of another 80 who have been laid off in recent weeks, a source said. The company says it hopes to “probably” recall 231 workers on a part-time basis working 20 hours a week.

“This is a difficult time for all of us,” Colleen Arnold, Garda’s director for central region, writes in the memo obtained by the Star.

She cited an “adjustment of hours” across the country by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the government agency that oversees airport security.

“The weekly hours of work with CATSA, our client, are being reduced,” she wrote.

Pearson International Airport may be just the first to be hit as security screeners at airports across the country are braced for similar changes and union officials say Ottawa’s belt-tightening is to blame.

“If the government is going to make budgetary cuts, I think they ought to cut in the right places, where there is less effect on health and safety of fliers,” said Wayne Fraser, district director of the United Steelworkers, which represents more than 2,500 screeners at airports in Ottawa, across Quebec, Atlantic and Western Canada.

“There’s a lot of people that use airlines across this country and they ought to have a sense of comfort that when they go through airport screening, there’s enough people to do the job.”

Passengers pay a fee for security screening — $7.48 for a one-way domestic flight and up to $25.91 for an international flight. With increased passenger traffic — up by 5.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2011 at Pearson alone — the staff cuts are raising questions about where the revenue from the fees is going.

“We’re not even sure what the hell is behind the cuts. Traffic is up so tell me why we’re cutting frontline people,” said Dave Ritchie, general vice-president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents screeners at airports in B.C. and Saskatchewan.

However, a spokesperson for CATSA denied the changes are the result of any cutbacks. Instead, Mathieu Larocque said it’s the result of new contracts with four companies last November to provide screening at airports nationwide.

He said the companies won the contracts on the strength of proposals to make screening more efficient.

“We asked the providers to propose new ways of doing screening, more efficient, screen more passengers per hour, better customer service, things like that,” Larocque said in an interview Wednesday.

“They’re implementing that model that they proposed.”

He said CATSA is “absolutely” confident that service and security will be maintained and even improved by the changes.

In a statement, Garda said it was laying off 68 workers at Pearson while reducing hours for another 231 employees. “Garda will continue to deploy its efficiency model to minimize the impact on passengers,” spokesperson Joe Gavaghan said in an email.

A spokesperson for Steven Fletcher, the minister of state for transport, said the “adjustments” will ensure best use of tax dollars. “There will be no impact on wait times for passengers, security will not be compromised,” said Brayden Akers.

Yet NDP MP Olivia Chow said that forcing fewer screeners to handle more passengers is a recipe for trouble. And she expressed disbelief at CATSA’s arguments that the changes can unfold with no impact on passengers or security.

“You can’t talk security unless you have human beings in place. It will either mean longer waits, longer line-ups, or you compromise security,” Chow said.

Published On Thu Jan 12 2012 The Star.com