Air Canada strike over for more than 100,000 travelers, 10,000 flight attendants? Here's the truth

Canada’s government forced Air Canada and its striking flight attendants back to work and into arbitration Saturday after a work stoppage stranded more than 100,000 travelers around the world during the peak summer travel season. Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said now is not the time to take risks with the economy, noting the unprecedented tariffs the U.S. has imposed on Canada. The intervention means the 10,000 flight attendants will return to work soon.

The government’s action came less than 12 hours after workers walked off the job. Hajdu said the full resumption of services could take days, noting it is up to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

The shutdown of Canada’s largest airline early Saturday is impacting about 130,000 people a day, and some 25,000 Canadians may be stranded. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.


Hajdu ordered the Canada Industrial Relations Board to extend the term of the existing collective agreement until a new one is determined by the arbitrator.

“Canadians rely on air travel every day, and its importance cannot be understated,” she said.

Wesley Lesosky, president of the Air Canada Component of CUPE union, complained in a statement that Hajdu only waited a few hours to intervene and said the government has violated their constitutional right to strike.

“The Liberal government is rewarding Air Canada’s refusal to negotiate fairly by giving them exactly what they wanted,” he said.

Union spokesman Hugh Pouliot didn’t immediately know what day workers would return to work. “We’re on the picket lines until further notice,” he said.

The bitter contract fight between the airline and the union representing 10,000 of its flight attendants escalated Friday as the union turned down the airline’s request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which would eliminate its right to strike and allow a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal.

Both sides say they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren’t in the air.

“We are heartbroken for our passengers. Nobody wants to see Canadians stranded or anxious about their travel plans but we cannot work for free," Natasha Stea, an Air Canada flight attendant and local union president, said before the government intervention was announced.

The attendants are about 70 per cent women. Stea said Air Canada pilots, who are male dominated, received a significant raise last year and questioned whether they are getting fair treatment.

The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions over four years, that it said “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada.”