Deadline looms to avert Air Canada strike

Air Canada confronted a midnight deadline Friday to avert a flight attendants strike that may shut down service, creating summer time journey chaos for the provider’s 130,000 day by day passengers. The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents Air Canada’s 10,000 flight attendants, says that along with wage will increase it desires to handle uncompensated floor work, together with in the course of the boarding course of.

Rafael Gomez, who heads the University of Toronto’s Center for Industrial Relations, instructed AFP it is “common practice, even around the world” to compensate flights attendants based mostly on time within the air. He stated the union had constructed an efficient communication marketing campaign across the problem, making a public notion of unfairness.

An common passenger, not conversant in widespread business follow, may assume, “‘I’m waiting to board the plane and there’s a flight attendant helping me, but they’re technically not being paid for that work,'” he stated.

“That’s a very good issue to highlight.” Air Canada detailed its newest provide in a Thursday assertion, specifying that below the phrases a senior flight attendant would on common make CAN$87,000 ($65,000) by 2027.

CUPE has described Air Canada’s affords as “below inflation (and) below market value.”

The airline, which flies to 180 airports worldwide, started cancelling remoted flights on Thursday, a part of what it referred to as a gradual wind-down of service forward of a possible full shutdown.

Chief working officer Mark Nasr instructed reporters that “all flights will be paused by Saturday early morning,” and not using a deal. CUPE issued a 72-hour strike discover at 12:01 am (0401 GMT) Wednesday, which means the labor motion may start one minute previous midnight on Saturday.

Gomez stated each side have been participating in “brinkmanship.”

“This is peak season,” he stated. “The airline does not want to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue… They’re almost playing chicken with the flight attendants.” CUPE rejected a request to settle excellent points by way of arbitration.