ore than 99 per cent of Air Canada flight attendants have voted in favour of strike action, their union said Tuesday, setting the stage for a possible work stoppage that could lead to thousands of cancelled flights.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Air Canada component said in a statement the vote result reflects its members’ “deep frustration” after months of stalled negotiations toward a new contract.
“Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have spoken: we’re tired of being undervalued, underpaid, and often not paid at all,” Wesley Lesosky, president of CUPE’s Air Canada component, said in a video posted to YouTube reacting to the vote results.
The vote began July 28 and wrapped up Tuesday afternoon, with 99.7 per cent of members voting in favour of strike action. The union said 94.6 per cent of its members cast a ballot.
If a deal isn’t reached, over 10,000 flight attendants who work on board Air Canada’s mainline and Rouge aircraft will be in position to walk off the job as early as midnight on Aug. 16.
Air Canada said Tuesday that it “firmly believes that there is more than enough time to reach such an agreement and avoid disrupting the plans of hundreds of thousands of travellers.”
Get daily National news
“Air Canada remains committed to the bargaining process and is eager to resume discussions, which CUPE had suspended during the vote,” the airline said in a statement reacting to the strike vote result.
It added the company “is determined to reach a fair and equitable collective agreement that recognizes the contributions of its flight attendants and supports the competitiveness and long-term growth of the company.”
According to the union, flight attendants are coming off a 10-year collective agreement with Air Canada.
During that time, the union said its members have lost “significant purchasing power” and that it is negotiating for higher wages and an “end to the abuse of unpaid work.”
The union said that before, during and after flights, flight attendants are required to perform “hours of unpaid mandatory” duties, including safety checks, boarding, deplaning and assisting passengers with special needs.
“A fair deal is within reach, but only if Air Canada is willing to acknowledge no one working full-time should live in poverty, and no one should be forced to work for free,” Lesosky said Tuesday.
Air Canada has said the current collective agreement “provides for additional compensation” for employees asked to perform services to passengers on the ground or outside their regular work hours.
“Air Canada’s approach to flight attendant compensation, including for ground time, is consistent with that at most global carriers,” the airline said Monday.
CUPE says that, although inflation in Canada has risen 169 per cent since 2000 and average full-time wages have increased 210 per cent, entry-level wages for Air Canada flight attendants have only gone up by 10 per cent.
A 72-hour strike notice cannot be issued before midnight on Aug. 16, which marks the end of a 21-day cooling-off period that began July 25 when CUPE ended the 60-day conciliation process.
According to the airline, it averages more than 500 daily domestic flights, with 430 flights to the U.S. each day and more than 170 trips to international destinations.
A strike by Air Canada pilots was averted at the last minute just under a year ago, when the airline and the pilots’ union reached an agreement just before the deadline to issue a strike notice.
Comments