Air Canada, stewardesses reach a preliminary deal to end the strike
A provisional agreement has been reached to terminate the contract conflict between Air Canada and its flight attendants, both the airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Cupe) said at the start of Tuesday.
Cupe, which represents more than 10,000 stewardesses in Air Canada, said that after nine hours of conversations with the help of the main mediator appointed by the federal government, the beaten deal will be presented to its membership, who will have the opportunity to ratify it.
One of the bottlenecks for the trade union was the issue of wage for work that was carried out while planes are on site. Although the issue did not work out, the trade union said in a statement to CBC News that “unpaid work is over”.
Cupe advised his members to “fully collaborate with the resumption of operations.”
Some cancellations that were expected in the coming days
Air Canada also confirmed the provisional deal in a statement and said that flights would gradually return from Tuesday evening.
Michael Rousseau, the president and Chief Executive Officer of the airline, advised customers to be patient as a complete recovery of the service “can require a week or more”, but said that “everyone at Air Canada does everything possible to enable them to travel soon.”
“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. We deeply regret and apologize deeply for the impact on them of this disturbance,” Rousseau said in the statement.
With the strike of the Air Canada stewardesses, passengers say they are frustrated about the high costs of booking alternative regulations.
During the transition to full resumption of the service, the airline expected that some flights would still be canceled. Rousseau said that the airline would offer options to customers in such a scenario, including a full reimbursement, a credit for future journeys and, if the space is permitted, to book on other airlines.
Pearson Airport, near Toronto, passengers advised in the coming days before they check their fleet status before they drove to terminals, and said that it used extra staff in the terminals and luggage areas to help passengers and support the startup activities.
Air Canada has around 700 flights every day. The airline had estimated on Monday that 500,000 customers would be hit by cancellations of the flight.
Aviation Analytics company Cirium said from Monday afternoon, Air Canada had blown at least 1,219 inner flights and 1,339 international flights since last Thursday, when the courier gradually started to suspend its activities prior to the strike and lockout.
Binding arbitration was rejected
The strike started at the beginning of Saturday, but only a few hours later the federal government called on a section in the Canadian labor code to order binding arbitration via the Canada Industrial Relations Board (Cirb).
Cupe rejected that procedural step of jobs Minister Patty Hajdu and accused Air Canada to anticipate such an intervention and not negotiate in good faith.
Cirb characterized the challenge of the trade union of the back-to-work order in the weekend as ‘illegal’.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Monday that he was disappointed by the impasse, but that it was important that stewardesses ‘were fairly compensated at all times’.
Jobs Patty Hajdu Minister joins Power & Politics and defends her decision to call Section 107 of the Canada Labor Code to order Air Canada StewardeSen back to work. She says: “It was clear” that the airline and the trade union “needed a different tool” to continue the negotiations after the trade union had gone into strike.
The trade union served the required notification of 72 hours of its intention to stop last Wednesday, after negotiations on the collective negotiation agreement that went on 31 March, had not led to a new pact. It was the first such work action by Air Canada Stewardessen since the 1980s.
The Union and the airline both agreed with the mediator, William Kaplan, who previously assisted with Canada Post Labor negotiations.
