An ‘illegal’ strike by more than 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada has come to an end after the airline reached a tentative contract agreement following secret talks in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The CUPE union, which represents crew members at Air Canada and its leisure subsidiary Air Canada Rouge, had defied an official government order to end the strike, demanding that the airline return to the bargaining table to hammer out an agreement.
The deal was reached with an independent mediator after more than nine hours of talks to address key issues, including below-inflation pay rises and the end of what the union had described as forced unpaid work during boarding and deplaning.
Air Canada has not operated any flights since Saturday, when the airline completed a lockout and shutdown in response to a strike threat by its flight attendants.
The airline had initially planned to resume flights on Sunday night following an intervention from the Canadian government, but the CUPE union defied an order from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to call an end to the strike and accept binding arbitration.
With this latest development, flight attendants will be allowed to vote on the mutually agreed-upon tentative agreement, although they will return to work while the voting process is still underway.
Flights are expected to resume on Tuesday evening, but Air Canada has warned that it could take up to a week for operations to return to normal.
“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. We deeply regret and apologize for the impact on them of this labour disruption,” Air Canada’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Rousseau, commented after the deal was announced.
“Restarting a major carrier like Air Canada is a complex undertaking. Full restoration may require a week or more, so we ask for our customers’ patience and understanding over the coming days. I assure them that everyone at Air Canada is doing everything possible to enable them to travel soon,” Rousseau continued.
The CUPE union said the deal would deliver “transformational change for our industry after a historic fight to affirm our Charter rights.”
“Unpaid work is over,” the statement continued. “We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”
“When our rights were taken away, we stood strong, we fought back — and we secured a tentative agreement that our members can vote on.”
Two of the biggest issues that had divided the two sides were the amount of the pay rise offered to flight attendants and the details of how the end of unpaid work would be delivered.
Traditionally, Air Canada flight attendants have only been paid for flying hours, meaning that boarding, deplaning, and dealing with any issues on the ground were unpaid.
The airline had offered to pay crew members for boarding at half the usual hourly rate, but the union had rejected this proposal. The union had also accused the airline of offering a pay rise that fell below the rate of inflation in real terms.
Details of the deal that Air Canada and its flight attendants have hammered out are yet to be released.
Labor activists believe that Air Canada deliberately chose to push its flight attendants towards a strike rather than trying to reach a mutually agreed-upon tentative agreement.
The suspected plan was to shut the airline down in response to the strike threat, forcing the Canadian government’s hand to make the two sides accept binding arbitration and order the flight attendants back to work.
On Sunday, that’s exactly what Mark Carney’s Labour administration did, but the union simply defied the legal order and maintained the strike action. A second attempt to force the flight attendants to end the strike was also rejected on Monday.
“As is customary, Air Canada will not comment on the agreement until the ratification process is complete,” the airline noted in a statement. During this process, any further strike action is prohibited.
Funny how CUPE thinks that the public supports them when they provide below average, borderline surly service.
They should be happy they’re getting a raise at all, even if it’s below inflation. Many people aren’t getting any annual raise at all, and for those who do it’s almost never pacing inflation.
FAs knew the arrangement of only being paid for flight hours when they signed up for the job. If they didn’t like it, they were free to not take the position.