I don’t think I’ve ever seen an employer fold as fast as Air Canada and the federal government just did. I cannot overstate what a win for labour rights this is in Canada.
Basically Air Canada’s flight attendants went on strike after 8 months of bargaining came up empty, grounding all Air Canada flights. The main issue at play was that whole thing where flight attendants aren’t paid until the plane doors are shut. So they basically they do hours of unpaid labour.
Within 12 hours of the strike, the federal labour minister requested back-to-work legislation to force the flight attendants back to work. But CUPE told the feds to fuck all the way off and arrest them instead. They were not going back to work. Now this is one of the most widely supported strikes I have ever seen. Like 80% of Canadians were on the unions side cause of that whole unpaid work thing. The feds were already in hot water for ordering the legislation (particularly by doing it not through Parliament) so they weren’t going to actually arrest people.
Air Canada immediately came back to the table and they reached an agreement within 7 hours. Including some ground pay. The Federal Government is looking into the claims of unpaid labour in the industry. They are going to struggle to ever use back-to-work legislation like that again.
Air Canada clearly thought the feds would break the strike and decided not to negotiate negating the point of a strike all together. The second that wasn’t an option they caved. Westjet’s contract is also up and I guarantee they won’t be playing games. This strike just revolutionized flight attendant compensation in Canada because CUPE stood strong. Labour rights are taken by force and must be protected just as strongly. Don’t let them erode.
