Laid off Aveos employees take job dispute to Montreal city hall

A group of former Aveos employees is taking an ongoing fight over layoffs to the city of Montreal, after the province of Quebec dropped its legal challenge against Air Canada.

• Manitoba applauds Quebec court ruling in Air Canada labour case

• Quebec to sue Air Canada over Aveos closure

They're headed to city hall this evening to demand that elected officials step in. 

The labour dispute dates back about three years, when thousands of Aveos employees were let go across Canada.

Aveos used to have a maintenance contract for Air Canada's planes. In the Montreal area alone, it represented as many as 1,700 jobs.

Federal legislation, passed in 1988 to privatize Air Canada, required the airline to keep its heavy maintenance operations in Winnipeg, Montreal and Mississauga. But Aveos went out of business in 2012, laying off more than 2,000 employees.

The province of Quebec leapt to the defense of the workers and took the case to court.

• Air Canada to buy CSeries jets

But when Air Canada agreed to buy at least 45 C-Series jets a few days ago — helping to save Bombardier and its new passenger jet program — the government of Quebec agreed to drop its lawsuit.

Dimitros Beltekas, a licensed structural aircraft technician, lost his job with Aveos back in 2012 after working there for 18 years.

He told CBC's Daybreak Montreal that he felt "deceived" and "victimized" when he found out the province was dropping its lawsuit.

"I don't believe that they should've packaged everything together … The issue with Bombardier … that's a different subject," he said. 

"To package the Aveos court proceedings along with that, to sort of push the purchase, I don't agree with [that]."

Gilbert McMullen is one of the former Aveos employees who will be asking for support from city hall Monday night.

"We're trying to get the support of Mr. Denis Coderre, if it has to be legal support or whatever we don't know exactly what it will be," he said.