A dispute is brewing between workers and authorities at Pearson International Airport, where almost 300 employees are slated to lose their jobs as a result of what their union calls “unethical” contract flipping.

The terms refers to a practice by employers of awarding contracts to different service providers every few years. Workers must then re-apply for their jobs, often losing any wage increases and benefits earned under their previous employer.

Leslie Dias, a national representative for private sector union Unifor, said the group was concerned for the fate of 282 employees of the customer assistance program at Pearson, which helps passengers with mobility issues embark and disembark their flights.

Since 2004, the contract for that service has been tendered to a new company every three years, the union says. The latest successful bidder is Toronto Ground Airport Services, which will take over in May. All former employees of the program previously administered by Air Canada and Swissport will have to re-apply for work under the new contractor.

On Friday, Unifor launched an information picket at the airport in protest, distributing flyers to passengers in Terminals 1 and 3. It plans to escalate action if a compromise is not reached. The union is asking that its workers be given preferential treatment in the re-hiring process.

Scott Armstrong, director of communications for the GTAA, said he understood that Toronto Ground Airport Services was willing to interview all of the former airport assistance workers and that they would be given “due consideration.” He added that the airport was seeking to improve its passenger care after receiving “a number of complaints” from customers using the service under Air Canada and Swissport.

But the union argues that the frequent change in service providers is a deliberate strategy to suppress wages and is creating “continual turmoil in people’s lives,” said Dias.

The practice is legal in federally regulated industries such as transport, because the Canada Labour Code contains no provisions for successorship rights. Such provisions require employers to maintain work standards negotiated by a union when a business is sold or transferred.

In Ontario, employers in the private and public sector are bound by successorship rights legislation, but employers who sub-contract services are not — a loophole that the Ontario Federation of Labour is pushing to close as the province embarks on a review of its employment and labour laws.