Talks between Air Canada and the union representing its 10,000 striking flight attendants resumed on Monday, hours after a labor relations board declared the walkout illegal and ordered the union to bring them back to work by midday.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees defied the board’s order, saying the strike, which has caused extensive disruption to air travel in Canada, would continue.
“We don’t want Canadians caught in this, but we will not be returning to the skies,” Mark Hancock, the union’s national president, said at a news conference. “We’re going to make sure that those women and men get the pay that they deserve.”
Hugh Pouliot, a spokesman for the union, said later that negotiations with Air Canada had resumed early on Monday evening. Addressing union members in a social media post, the union’s bargaining committee said the talks were being aided by a mediator.
The Canadian government decided on Saturday to try to end the strike by forcing the labor dispute into binding arbitration. The union contends that the government’s move was itself illegal and violated its members’ constitutional right to strike and to achieve a negotiated settlement.
The union filed an application asking the Federal Court of Canada to overturn the order. It also asked for an injunction to suspend the return-to-work and arbitration orders until the court reviews its application.
If the renewed talks fail and the strike continues, the union and its members could face large daily fines and even the prospect of jail for the union’s leadership.
Air Canada, in a statement issued on Monday afternoon, estimated that the strike, which began early Saturday morning, had resulted in the cancellation of flights for 500,000 passengers.
“Air Canada regrets this impact on its customers and is fully committed to returning to service as soon as possible,” the airline said.
The independent Canada Industrial Relations Board had given the union until noon Monday to call off the strike.
Mr. Hancock said the prospect of imprisonment would not sway him. “If it means folks like me going to jail, then so be it,” he told reporters. “If it means our union being fined, then so be it.”
Air Canada had originally hoped to resume some flights on Sunday night. It later pushed that target back to Monday evening, and then to Tuesday.
Patty Hajdu, the country’s labor minister, told the Canadian Press news agency and CBC News early Monday evening that she had ordered an investigation into one of the key issues that have stalled a settlement between the airline and the flight attendants, 70 percent of whom are women. That issue is compensation for work before and after a flight, like helping passengers board and deplane. Right now, attendants are only paid for work they do during flights.
The union wants an end to that practice, which is widespread in the industry.
The union estimates that its members do about 35 hours of free work each month. It has said that Air Canada is now offering to pay for that work at half the normal wage rate, and that it wants the full rate.
“We have to understand the extent of this unpaid work, when it’s happening, how employers are getting around their legal obligations,” Ms. Hajdu told CBC News.
The union said it would not comment on the minister’s investigation until it learned more about it. It was unclear whether the investigation played a role in the resumption of talks.
Air Canada controls about 48 percent of available seat miles in Canada, the industry measure of capacity. Unlike its smaller competitors, it offers extensive international service, to 65 countries.
The airline has said it would try to rebook passengers whose flights were canceled onto other airlines’ flights, but the peak summer travel period and ts competitors’ lower capacity have made that difficult. Many passengers have rebooked on Air Canada flights days after their original departure dates, in the apparent hope that the airline will be running again.
Stranded passengers have complained that they cannot get through to Air Canada’s overwhelmed call centers. But it appeared that most travelers had taken the airline’s advice and were not going to airports to try to sort out their flights.
In addition to pay for work carried out before and after flights, the union is seeking higher wages, particularly for its least experienced members. It maintains that those flight attendants make less than minimum wage.
Air Canada has responded publicly by citing the potential earnings of its most senior flight attendants, saying that if its current offer is accepted, 20 percent of that group will earn more than 90,000 Canadian dollars, about $65,000, a year.
Air Canada originally tried to thwart a strike by asking the union to voluntarily agree to arbitration. Then it asked the government, unsuccessfully, to impose arbitration in advance of Saturday’s strike.
The increasing use of arbitration to end strikes is “a perversion to the intentions of the system,” said Stephanie Ross, an associate professor of labor studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Because arbitrators rarely introduce new measures in their imposed contracts, such as ground pay for flight attendants, Ms. Ross said that the prospect of arbitration removes an incentive for employers to negotiate.
“It was only a matter of time before a union defied a back-to-work order, it was a ticking time bomb,” she said, adding that the union’s response had raised the stakes.
“We do have a history in Canada of union leaders who refuse to order their members back to work having been sent to jail,” Ms. Ross said.
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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