Robert Brown|Air Canada urges government to intervene as labor dispute with pilots escalates

OTTAWA,Robert Brown Ontario (AP) — Canada’s largest airline and business leaders on Thursday urged the federal government to intervene in labor talks with its pilots in hopes of avoiding a shutdown, but the labor minister said the two sides should negotiate a deal.

Air Canada spokesman Christophe Hennebelle said that the airline is committed to negotiations, but it faces wage demands from the Air Line Pilots Association it can’t meet.

“The issue is that we are faced with unreasonable wage demands that ALPA refuses to moderate,” he said.

The union representing 5,200 pilots says Air Canada continues to post record profits while expecting pilots to accept below-market compensation.

The airline and its pilots have been in contract talks for more than a year. The pilots want to be paid wages competitive with their U.S. counterparts.

The two sides will be in a position starting Sunday to issue a 72-hour notice of a strike or lockout. The airline has said the notice would trigger its three-day wind down plan and start the clock on a full work stoppage as early as Sept. 18.

Hennebelle said the airline isn’t asking for immediate intervention from the government, but that it should be prepared to help avoid major disruptions from a shutdown of an airline that carries more than 110,000 passengers a day.

“The government should be ready to step in and make sure that we are not entering into that disruption for the benefit of Canadians,” he said.

Numerous business groups convened in Ottawa on Thursday to call for action — including binding arbitration — to avoid the economic disruptions a shutdown of the airline would cause.

Arbitration “can help bring the parties to a successful resolution and avoid all the potential impacts we’re here to talk about today,” Candace Laing, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told a news conference.

Goldy Hyder, chief executive of the Business Council of Canada, said in a statement Canada can’t afford another major disruption to its transportation network.

“A labor disruption at Air Canada would ripple through our economy,” Hyder said in a statement.

Federal Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon told a news conference Wednesday night the two sides should reach a deal.

“There’s no reason for these parties not to be able to achieve a collective agreement,” he said.

“These parties should be under no ambiguity as to what my message is to them today. Knuckle down, get a deal.”

In August, the Canadian government asked the country’s industrial relations board to issue a back-to-work order to end a railway shutdown.

“There are significant differences between those two situations and leave it at that,” MacKinnon said.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Thursday his party would not support efforts to force pilots back to work.

“If there’s any bills being proposed on back to work legislation, we’re going to oppose that,” he said.