Air Canada Serves Cease And Desist On Flight Attendants For ‘Illegal’ Strike Activity

Air Canada has served a cease and desist letter on the union representing more than 10,000 of its flight attendants, accusing it of encouraging illegal union activity, as a complete shutdown of the airline gets underway.

The alleged ‘illegal’ activity was advice provided by the union to flight attendants, in which members were told to “govern yourselves” in response to working flights back to Canada after the strike commenced on Saturday.

The issue stems from the fact that Air Canada wanted to repatriate all of its planes back from overseas even after the lockout began. There was, however, a dispute between the union and Air Canada over how these repatriation flights would operate.

Air Canada wanted to amend certain conditions within the existing flight attendant contract, and this was rejected by the union. In response, the union told its members to “govern yourself accordingly” if asked to work on these flights.

In addition, the union provided very similar advice in response to questions from its members over whether they should “book off” before the strike even got underway – essentially calling sick on flights that would leave them away from their home when the strike commenced in the early hours of Saturday.

Air Canada witnessed the number of ‘book-offs’ increase substantially on Thursday and Friday, with just shy of 600 crew members calling in sick between August 14 and 15.

Lawyers acting on behalf of Air Canada claim comments made by the union and its national president, Mark Hancock, “constitute encouragement of illegal strike activity.”

The letter demanded the CUPE union “use all means necessary to ensure that illegal strike activity does not occur.” The letter was sent to the leader of the local Air Canada component of the union just hours before the strike got underway.

Is it a strike or a lockout?

It’s important to note that Air Canada ceased all flying on Saturday, not because its flight attendants went on strike but because it issued a lockout notice, banning them from working even if they wanted to.

Air Canada says it did this because it had to ensure an orderly shutdown of its operation to avoid travel chaos, although that decision has left tens of thousands of passengers stranded around the world.

There could be several motives for issuing a lockout notice with such massive ramifications, although critics of the airline’s actions believe they are trying to force the government’s hand to intervene in the dispute.

Ottawa could make the flight attendants return to work by forcing them into binding arbitration to resolve the contract impasse. Air Canada supports the arbitration methods, whereas the union believes a deal has to be hammered out in bargaining at the negotiation table.

So far, however, the Canadian government has shown remarkable unwillingness to get involved in the dispute. Whether political and media pressure changes that position in the days ahead will be key to how this dispute ends.