Vancouver, Canada: Nearly three weeks after flight attendants launched a strike against the largest airline in Canada, Air Canada employees are voting on a contract to end the conflict, which sparked a national labor movement.
On August 16, the country’s busiest month for air travel, roughly 10,500 flight attendants launched a three-day strike. After a day of labor on picket lines, Ottawa gave them a job back, but union leaders resisted, putting them in jail and paying fines.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
The union members can now vote on the tentative agreement they reached on August 19. Voting ends on Saturday, with results anticipated soon.
According to estimates, the airline lost 300 million dollars and had to cancel flights for a half-million people.
The 40-year-old labor code’s long-unknown “industrial peace” clause, which has been used to end strikes a half-dozen times in the last year, was used for the first time by any union.
However, according to rank-and-file employees and labor analysts, the tentative agreement between their union and the airline is causing more discontent.
After the federal government declared their strike “unlawful,” several flight attendants informed Al Jazeera that the agreement had been reached under “duress.” The airline then ordered the workers to return to their jobs on August 16 for their first day on picket lines.
Oliver Cooper, an Air Canada service director in Vancouver who started out as a flight attendant with the company nine years ago, said, “This came about under quite a bit of duress.” We haven’t actually negotiated our agreement informally.
Our leaders were threatened with jail time, we were told. The union was threatened with fines. That shouldn’t have to occur.
According to Adam Donald King, assistant professor of labor studies at the University of Manitoba, some flight attendants are upset about the terms of the agreement as well as how Ottawa forcibly enforced it.
He said, “They actually have a deal that they can’t reject.”
We keep up the optimism, says the airline.
In reality, flight attendants might reject the offer.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) called the agreement a “transformational agreement” as voting began last week.
Its first year saw a 13% wage increase for younger hires, an 8 percent increase for older employees, and nearly 3 percent increases in subsequent years.
The airline expressed hope for its support from its employees.
An Air Canada spokesman wrote in an email that the agreement was reached without the union’s consent and included changes to pay, pension, and benefits.
There is a chance that the agreement won’t be accepted, despite our best efforts to ratify it.
Only the wage agreements would be subject to binding arbitration if they were rejected. There are no strikes or lockouts permitted on other issues because they are set in stone.
Our members forced the company back to the table with a better offer, with no regard for wages, CUPE spokesman Hugh Pouliot wrote in an email.
We’ll respect the members’ decisions.
Cooper is one of those who voted no, despite having seen some positives, particularly the new hires’ pay raise.
Starting wages in the agreement are lower than 34 Canadian dollars ($24.60) per hour, which Cooper claimed does not keep up with inflation.
According to Cooper, “These people need to be lifted out of poverty.” My younger coworkers say that, and I applaud them.
“People are in desperate need, and we are playing the dice.”
Unpaid work
The numerous unpaid hours that flight attendants work on are a major issue.
Many claim to work for free, with the exception of helping passengers board planes, handling excess luggage, awaiting delayed flights, and even handling medical emergencies.
Reagan Goulding, a flight attendant for 30 years, said, “The majority of the public didn’t understand how we weren’t paid before we board the aircraft, only from takeoff to landing.” We are not paid if the engines don’t start and we are parked.
That doesn’t seem fair, I thought.
The airline will only receive half of their hourly rate for time spent on the ground under the new tentative agreement, which will also include up to 60 minutes.
According to a spokesperson for Air Canada, “pay for ground duties was a component of overall compensation.” The new contract includes “innovative ground pay practices in the Canadian industry.”
The Federal Jobs Minister claims to be looking into airlines’ reliance on unpaid work right now.
Aissa Diop, a spokesperson for the airline industry, stated in an email that the Minister has launched a probe into unpaid work. No one should be paid to work.
Goulding anticipates that the majority of her agitated coworkers won’t vote for her.
She said, “We’re doing a lot of service on the ground.” There aren’t many things in the tentative agreement, according to the statement. We were prepared to withdraw [on strike], the union had our backs, and we were all in favor.
There are many unhappy people, it appeared to be just giving up.
allegations of “federal bias”
The way the strike was halted was a sticking point, according to the flight attendants interviewed by Al Jazeera.
The jobs minister asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to sign its back-to-work decree, citing Section 107 of the Canadian Labour Code, which allows the minister to “secure industrial peace.”
Chairperson Maryse Tremblay, who CUPE alleged should step aside from ruling on their strike, signed the order, alleging a “reasonable apprehension of bias.”
Tremblay  served as Air Canada’s senior internal legal counsel from 2004 to 2004, and he then acted for the airline at two law firms, most recently in 2022.
However, she “refused the allegations of bias,” saying on August 22 that “prevalence alone is not sufficient”to prove a conflict.
The organization said, “CIRB’s decisions speak for themselves, not in any way.”
Goulding claimed that “she worked for the company.” The government didn’t do anything about it, and it speaks for itself.
A “warning bell” sounds
King claimed that Section 107 of the labor code, which had been in place for decades, was rarely used in favor of parliamentary back-to-work legislation.
It was used a half-dozen times for federally regulated workplaces, including those in ports, postal, railroads, and aviation, during the past year.
According to King, “Audition unions complied and filed court challenges, but their strikes were ended.” For the first time, a union has said no.
CUPE has since filed a lawsuit against Ottawa over Section 107, alleging that it violated unionists’ “Charter-protected rights” to protect these crucial bargaining rights from unauthorized access in the future.
According to King, this “remarkable moment” in Canadian history suggests a pattern following the pandemic, where workers have increased expectations and “more willingness to fight.”
Cooper says that while the flight attendants’ defiant stance was brief, it could serve as a “wake-up call” about more labor assertiveness.
He said, “What’s happened with Air Canada might just be a blip.” The labor leaders of tomorrow will be in need.
“Suddenly, a wildcat strike or a general strike might not seem so harmful; in addition, the advantages may far outweigh the overall effects.”
Regardless of whether a vote is cast, Henly Larden, the vice president of CUPE’s Vancouver local, has a chance to give her colleagues their say, despite the fact that both the employer and the government have “stifled” their voices.
Free from unnecessary pressure or influence, she wrote in a blog post, “each and every one of us will have an opportunity to evaluate the agreement’s merits and cast our vote to ratify or not.”
Cooper said standing up for what they did made him feel proud of his fellowworkers.
