Work-To-Rule Protest Causes Huge Delays at Pearson

If deliberately being lazy on the job is a labour protest, then we're Cesar Chavez.

Security workers at Toronto's Pearson International Airport are in their second day of a work-to-rule action, in which they're deliberately working more slowly than usual to protest a new scheduling system. Travellers have reported hours-long lines at security screening checkpoints at Pearson's Terminal One, from which many domestic and U.S.-bound flights depart. Garda, the security firm in charge of screening at the terminal, won an injunction from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board that made the protest illegal, but the workers have yet to comply. We're not really sure how someone could enforce that injunction anyway, unless it included a provision setting out a minimum quota of travellers to be scanned each hour. Either way, if you're flying out of Toronto over the Thanksgiving weekend, bring a book and comfortable shoes. You could be in for a loooooong wait. Or, just take a Porter flight out of Toronto Island. Free beer!