Vancouver, Canada: Nearly three weeks after flight attendants went on strike against Canada’s largest airline, Air Canada workers are voting on a contract to resolve the dispute, which galvanised the country’s labour movement.
Roughly 10,500 flight attendants launched a three-day strike on August 16, during the country’s peak month for air travel. After a day on picket lines, Ottawa ordered them back to work — but union leaders refused, risking jail and fines.
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Now the tentative agreement they reached on August 19 is up for a vote among union members. Voting ends Saturday, and results are expected shortly after.
The dispute is estimated to have cost the airline as much as 300 million Canadian dollars, and cancelled flights for a half-million travellers.
It was the first time any union has defied a long-obscure “industrial peace” clause in Canada’s 40-year-old labour code — one that’s been used to end strikes a half-dozen times in just the past year.
But there is growing discontent over the tentative contract reached between their union and the airline, according to rank-and-file employees and labour analysts.
Several flight attendants told Al Jazeera the deal was reached under “duress” after the federal government declared their strike “unlawful”, ordered striking workers back to their jobs on August 16, their first day on picket lines.
“This came about under quite a bit of duress”, said Oliver Cooper, an Air Canada service director in Vancouver who started as a flight attendant with the airline nine years ago. “We haven’t really freely negotiated our contract.
“We had the threats of jail time for our leaders. We had threats of fines for the union. It shouldn’t have to come to that.”
Some flight attendants are upset about both the contents of the deal, but also the way it was forcibly imposed by Ottawa, said Adam Donald King, assistant professor of labour studies at the University of Manitoba.
“They effectively have a deal they can’t refuse,” he said.
‘We remain hopeful,’ says airline
Flight attendants might, in fact, refuse the deal.
As voting began last week, divisions surfaced over what the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) called a “transformational” agreement.
In its first year, it includes a 12 percent wage increase for newer hires, 8 percent for more senior workers, and nearly 3 percent raises in subsequent years.
The airline said it hopes employees support it.
“The agreement was achieved without concessions from the union, and included improvements to wages, pension and benefits”, an Air Canada spokesperson said via email.
“While we remain hopeful the agreement will be ratified, there is a possibility that it will not be accepted.”
If it is rejected, only the wage clauses would go to binding arbitration. Other issues are set in stone, with no strikes or lockouts allowed.
“Because of their courage in walking a picket line, our members forced the company back to the table, with a better offer — except on wages”, CUPE spokesperson Hugh Pouliot told Al Jazeera in an email.
“We will respect whatever decision is made by our members.”
Cooper is among those voting no, even though he sees some positives, particularly the salary boost for new hires.
Starting wages in the deal are below 34 Canadian dollars ($24.60) an hour — a four-dollar raise — which Cooper said does not keep pace with inflation.
“These people need to get lifted out of poverty”, Cooper said. “I hear that from my younger colleagues, and I support them.”
“People are desperate, and we are rolling the dice.”
Unpaid work
A major issue for flight attendants is their many unpaid work hours.
With some exceptions, many say they often work for free — including when helping passengers board aircraft, dealing with excess luggage, awaiting delayed flights, and even handling medical situations.
“The majority of the public didn’t understand how we weren’t paid before we board the aircraft, only from takeoff to landing”, said Reagan Goulding, a flight attendant for three decades. “If the engines aren’t running and we’re parked, we’re not paid.
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
Under the new tentative agreement, the airline will pay up to 60 minutes for time on the ground, but only at half their hourly wage.
“Previously, pay for ground duties was an element of overall compensation”, Air Canada’s spokesperson said. “The new contract contains specific provisions for ground pay that are industry-leading in Canada.”
The federal jobs minister says she is now investigating airlines’ reliance on unpaid work.
“The Minister has launched a probe into unpaid work in the airline sector”, spokesperson Aissa Diop said via email. “Nobody should work for free.”
Goulding predicts a no vote by most of her fed-up coworkers.
“We’re doing so much service on the ground”, she said. “The whole tentative agreement doesn’t give us a whole lot of things. “We were ready to stay out [on strike], the union had us all supportive, we had their backs.”
“It seemed like we just gave up … There’s a lot of unhappy people.”
Allegations of federal ‘bias’
One sticking point for flight attendants Al Jazeera interviewed was the way the strike was suppressed.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) issued its back-to-work decree at the request of the jobs minister — citing Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which lets the minister intervene to “secure industrial peace”.
The order was signed by chairperson Maryse Tremblay, whom CUPE complained should step aside from ruling on their strike, alleging a “reasonable apprehension of bias”.
Tremblay was Air Canada’s senior in-house legal counsel for seven years, until 2004, and later represented the airline at two law firms, most recently in 2022.
But she “dismissed the allegations of bias”, declaring on August 22 that “prior experience alone is not sufficient” to prove a conflict.
The agency declined to comment, saying “CIRB’s decisions speak for themselves.”
“She worked for the company”, Goulding said. “It speaks for itself, and the government did nothing about it.”
‘A warning bell’
King said while the labour code’s Section 107 existed for decades, it was seldom used in favour of parliamentary back-to-work legislation.
This past year, it’s been used a half-dozen times for federally regulated workplaces, including ports, postal, railways, and aviation.
“Other unions complied and filed court challenges, but ended their strikes”, King said. “This is the first time a union has said no.”
CUPE has since sued Ottawa over Section 107, alleging a violation of unionists’ Charter-protected rights “to defend these important bargaining rights against future attacks”.
This “remarkable moment” in Canadian history, King said, suggests a pattern after the pandemic — that workers have heightened expectations and “a greater willingness to fight.”
Flight attendants’ defiant stance was brief, but it could serve as a “wake-up call” about increased labour assertiveness, Cooper says.
“What’s happened with Air Canada is just maybe a warning bell”, he said. “Tomorrow’s labour leaders are going to be desperate.
“Suddenly, a wildcat strike or a general strike might not seem so threatening; the benefits might far outweigh the consequences collectively.”
For flight attendant Henly Larden, vice president of CUPE’s Vancouver local, regardless of a yes or no, this week’s vote is a chance for her colleagues to finally have their say — even though their voices “were stifled” by both employer and government.
“Each and every one of us will have an opportunity to assess the agreement on its merits and cast our vote to ratify or not,” she wrote in a blog post, “free from undue pressure or influence.”
Cooper said he feels proud of his colleagues after standing their ground.
“It was pretty fiery,” he recalled. “It was something to be proud of.”
