Air Canada is screwing over flight attendants

And the federal government will probably help!

In January 2023, Air Canada operates an Airbus A220 on the ground at Miami International Airport in the southern United States. For all the time they spent boarding and disembarking passengers, the flight attendants were completely unpaid. | Copyright © Colin Cooke, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

If you’re planning to fly soon with Air Canada…no, you’re actually probably not. After the expiration of the ten-year contract between Air Canada and the flight attendants union, affiliated with CUPE, the two sides engaged in eight months of negotiations, which have proven unfruitful.

Now, CUPE has delivered a strike notice, and Air Canada in exchange is cancelling flights from August 16^th onward, planning to lockout employees. Labour disruption of at least some duration now appears very likely. And considering that I am flying with Air Canada the day before that lockout, I’m a little nervous about things myself.

But considering the reason the flight attendants have for issuing a strike notice, and the sheer absurdity of just what Air Canada is doing to their paycheques?

I fully support this strike, even if it causes me some personal difficulties this weekend. The way that Air Canada is treating their employees is simply unacceptable.

For clarification, while Air Canada’s mainline fleet will be impacted this weekend, regional Air Canada Express flights will continue as normal. This is due to the fact that Air Canada does not operate these Express flights, but rather contracts out operations to regional operators like Jazz Aviation and PAL Airlines.

Obviously, the unions at mainline Air Canada hate this, because contracting out to these companies is a very transparent way for Air Canada to avoid hiring union staff. Indeed, both pilots and flight attendants onboard Air Canada Express flights make lower pay than their counterparts on mainline flights.

As a result, union contracts tend to include something known as “scope clauses”, which limits how many flights can be contracted out, as well as how many seats the planes can have. Air Canada Express can only operate small planes like the Bombardier CRJ900 or the Embraer E175 jets, or the De Havilland Dash-8 turboprop, and these are mostly limited to 76 seats, with a few at 78 instead.

But this actually isn’t the main argument right now between the flight attendants’ union and Air Canada’s management. It is important, however, because airlines will typically bargain for relaxation of scope clauses during negotiations. As such, an offer of increased pay may be an illusion, if the trade-off is that more union jobs will be contracted away.

So what is the problem? Very simply, flight attendants are performing work, and are not being paid for that work.

Flight attendants are paid by Air Canada, and most other airlines, on an hourly basis rather than a salaried basis. In this situation, the normal rules are supposed to apply: if you are required by your employer to be present and working, you are supposed to be compensated for each of those hours.

Even if you’re not actively performing work, if your employer requires your presence, you are considered “engaged to wait” and are still required to be paid for this time. But in the case of flight attendants, they are the victims of extensive wage theft.

Currently, Air Canada does not begin paying flight attendants until the plane pushes back from the departure gate, and stops counting hours once the plane pulls in to the arrival gate.

So when they’re boarding and disembarking passengers on the plane? When they’re doing safety checks, or providing assistance, or even first aid in a medical emergency? None of that work is compensated. Flight attendants are not given anything while performing core job responsibilities on the ground, not even a single dime.

Back in December 2023, when I was in Toronto about to board an Air Canada flight to Ottawa, I faced a serious medical problem, and needed to be taken to the emergency room. I was incredibly thankful for the flight attendant who gave me first aid and kept me calm until paramedics arrived. And I am enraged to learn that she was forced to do this for me completely unpaid.

In the failed negotiations with CUPE, Air Canada has offered pay the flight attendants for work on the ground…but only at half their hourly rate. The flight attendants, on the other hand, are steadfast and resolute; they will not perform work without being paid their full, normal rate.

The union is fully correct to insist on being paid, and to threaten a strike if they are not paid. Being paid for your work is probably the most fundamental aspect of the relationship between management and labour, and right now Air Canada’s management is scamming labour. None of us would accept something like this at our own places of work, and Air Canada shouldn’t be an exception.

But in addition to Air Canada, these workers may also find themselves pitted against Prime Minister Carney and his centre-right government. The Liberals under Trudeau repeatedly used strikebreaking legislation to declare strikes illegal, despite this being blatantly unconstitutional under the Charter. With Carney being further right than Trudeau, why should we expect anything different?

Yesterday, Minister of what-used-to-be-called-Labour Patty Hajdu issued a statement pressing both parties to return to the bargaining table and avoid a labour disruption. In what I can best describe as a veiled threat, Minister Hajdu said “Canadians expect [the parties] to reach a deal one way or another.”

It is very transparent that the federal government, rather than investigate Air Canada’s alleged wage theft, would rather team up with Air Canada and smack down the union. There is no doubt in my mind: Carney’s “pro-business” policies serve to make the rich richer, and the poor even poorer.

I support CUPE and the flight attendants in their labour action, no matter how disruptive the strike may end up becoming. Indeed, the disruption of a strike is the only leverage that a union has. And if Minister Hajdu and Prime Minister Carney don’t like that?

They can fuck off.