The agreement the union representing about 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants reached with the airline on Monday not only ended a walkout that affected half a million passengers, it may also lend more muscle to unions facing future back-to-work orders.
It could also end a long disputed pay practice across Canada’s airline industry.
Air Canada, which serves about 130,000 people on 300 flights a day, expected to restore partial service on Tuesday night, but said it would take up to 10 days for normal operations to resume.
“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers,” Michael Rousseau, president and chief executive of Air Canada, said in a statement. “Our priority now is to get them moving as quickly as possible.”
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the airline attendants, said the settlement, which emerged from an all-night bargaining session, would bring “transformational change for our industry.”
The agreement came after the union defied two back-to-work orders and rejected the federal government’s attempt to force a deal through binding arbitration rather than negotiation. The union’s defiance exposed union members and leaders to large fines and even possible jail time.
“We have reclaimed our voice and our power,” the union said in a statement to its members. “When our rights were taken away, we stood strong, we fought back.”
The tentative deal, while a significant step, must still be approved by flight attendants, who overwhelmingly supported the strike that began on Saturday.
The union said that the deal was reached at 4:23 a.m. Eastern time, after slightly more than nine hours of talks and with the help of a mediator.
“We must fully cooperate with the resumption of operations,” the union’s bargaining committee said in a message to its members.
The overnight talks yielded a significant gain for flight attendants.
The union had demanded that Air Canada follow the lead of some U.S. airlines by paying attendants for work that they do before takeoff and after landing, like boarding passengers and carrying out safety checks.
Like many airlines, Air Canada pays flight attendants only for work done while the plane is in the air.
During earlier rounds of negotiation, Air Canada had agreed to pay attendants for ground work, but at a lower hourly pay rate and for a limited amount of time, according to the union.
A person familiar with the agreement, who was not authorized to publicly disclose the terms before they were shared with flight attendants, said Air Canada had agreed to pay 70 percent of the regular wage rate for 45 minutes of ground work on smaller aircraft and for 60 minutes on larger planes.
“Unpaid work is over,” the union said.
The formula differs from those used at American air carriers that pay for work before and after flights. Flight attendants at American and Delta are paid half their hourly rate for however long boarding takes.
A different branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees represents flight attendants at WestJet, Air Canada’s largest domestic competitor, and Porter Airlines, a Toronto-based carrier. The union is now likely to demand that those two carriers match Air Canada on ground pay in future contract talks.
The union also wanted broader wage increases. It said Air Canada had offered to increase wages by 17.2 percent over four years, an amount the union said would not keep pace with inflation.
The person familiar with the agreement said Air Canada had increased its wage offer, but would not disclose the amount.
The labor dispute was the latest in a series of walkouts the federal government has shut down through arbitration.
It became the tool of choice after a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2015 that upheld the constitutional right to strike and limited the ability of governments to interfere even in widely disruptive walkouts, said Stephanie Ross, an associate professor of labor studies, at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
This time, however, the union defied the back-to-work orders arguing that they were unconstitutional and asked the Federal Court of Canada to strike down both the back-to-work orders and the arbitration. An arbitrated negotiation rarely produces new contract provisions, like for ground pay.
The union’s aggressive stance makes it less likely that any government will again attempt to shut down a strike through arbitration, said David J. Doorey, a professor of workplace law at York University in Toronto.
“The Canadian labor movement has drawn a line in the sand and said that it won’t tolerate that practice anymore,” he said.
The talks between the union and Air Canada restarted after Patty Hajdu, Canada’s labor minister, said she had started an investigation into the issue of unpaid ground work, calling the practice “deeply disturbing” in an interview with CBC News.
“We’re going to hold the government to their word on this,” Hugh Pouliot, a spokesman for the union, said. “It’s a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.”
Niraj Chokshi contributed reporting from New York.
Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times. A Windsor, Ontario, native now based in Ottawa, he has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
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