Air Canada, flight attendants reach deal

Air Canada has reached a tentative contract deal with the union for its flight attendants, averting a possible strike that would have severely disrupted operations at Canada’s biggest airline.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees said Tuesday it is recommending Air Canada’s 6,800 flight attendants accept the deal, details of which won’t be made public until after a vote is held.
“It’s business as usual and customers can continue to make their travel plans on Air Canada with confidence,” Susan Welscheid, Air Canada’s senior vice-president of customer service said in a statement.
In August, the Air Canada flight attendants had resoundingly rejected a tentative deal CUPE negotiated with the airline, forcing the two sides back to the drawing board. The key areas of dispute were wages, pensions, crew rest, working conditions and work rules.
CUPE said it will hold meetings of its membership in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal over the next week.
Union president Jeff Taylor said its “executive committee will recommend that its members accept this tentative agreement.”
A strike deadline had been set for just after midnight Wednesday, though federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt had warned she would introduce back-to-work legislation.
Minutes after the deal was announced by the union, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt stood in the House of Commons to call on union members to ratify the agreement.
“The objective of the legislation that we put on notice yesterday has been achieved and we are so very pleased that air service for Canadians will be protected,” she said.
A walkout in June by the airline’s customer service agents lasted just three days before a deal was reached under a threat by Raitt that she would legislate them back to work.
The Air Canada deal with its flight attendants was announced soon after the two sides resumed face-to-face talks and hours after they broke off negotiations in the middle of the night.
It prompted Air Canada’s (TSX:AC.B) shares to soar more than six per cent, gaining 10 cents to $1.69 in afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The airline had begun to initiate parts of a plan to continue flying through a strike by contacting passengers and changing some of the flights operated by its regional partner Jazz (TSX:CHR.B).
Industry observers believed it would use trained managers and office personnel to maintain flights on its most lucrative routes.
Before a deal was reached, passengers at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport were worried about the impact of a strike on their own travel plans.
The union held rallies at Parliament Hill in Ottawa and other locations as a show of support.
Sal Occhiuzzi, 54, a flight attendant for 31 years, said workers just wanted a fair deal that will allow them to recover some of the money lost in the last decade.
“We helped the company out when things were tough and we all gave a lot and it’s time for the company to give a bit back,” he said.
Banging drums and toting signs, flight attendants rallied at the country’s largest airport, backed by several other of the airline’s unions.
Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan said it would be wrong for the federal government to use its majority to “beat down on workers.”
In Ottawa, CUPE national president Paul Moist urged the federal government not to intervene in the strike, saying Raitt is the country’s labour minister not the minister of management.
“We celebrate our democracy around the planet. We call on China to respect human rights. Well, one of the fundamental human rights of any free and democratic society are labour rights,” Moist said in an interview in Ottawa before the deal was reached.
While the union didn’t want to inconvenience Air Canada’s passengers he said “it’s an inconvenience for Air Canada workers to be working at wages they earned prior to 2004.”
A former Air Canada director of employee relations said the government’s threat of back-to-work legislation was playing right into the hands of the union.
George Smith, currently a fellow at Queen’s University’s School of Policy Studies, said the airline believed it would have the upper hand to fight a strike in pursuit of its financial objectives.
Faced with high unemployment, the travelling public wouldn’t likely be sympathetic to travel disruptions, he said in an interview.
“The balance of power would have perceived to be in their hands and it now might have shifted as a result of our friends in government.”
Smith said the recent arbitration ruling granting the union’s proposal for a hybrid pension plan for new customer service hires has prevented Air Canada from achieving its objectives.
Left only to choose between proposals from each side, the arbitrator chose the path of gradualism over more radical change advocated by the airline.