MONTREAL — After striking for three days in defiance of a federal government back-to-work order, 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada began returning to work Aug. 19 when their union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, announced a deal had been reached. The workers had shut down the country’s largest airline in their first strike in 40 years.
Picket lines went up shortly before 1 a.m. Aug. 16. By 2 p.m., the federal government had invoked section 107 of the Canada Labour Code ordering flight attendants back to work and imposing binding arbitration.
But boosted by widespread labor support, flight attendants refused to comply, keeping lively picket lines up across the country.
“We will not turn our back on these workers,” Mark Hancock, CUPE national president, told the press. “And if it means folks like me going to jail, then so be it. If it means our union being fined, then so be it.”
This is the fourth time in a year the federal government has used anti-labor laws to rule a strike illegal, having earlier sent tens of thousands of striking postal workers, port workers and rail workers back to work without a contract.
But after an emergency meeting with union leaders, the Canadian Labour Congress declared Aug. 17, “The heads of Canada’s unions … stand united behind Air Canada Flight Attendants in defying the government’s unconstitutional attack on workers’ rights. An attack on one is an attack on all.”
“If the government takes legal action against these workers, the labour movement will respond swiftly and stand united in unwavering solidarity.”
Flight attendants are demanding pay raises and to be paid for every hour worked. Up to now, they put in many unpaid hours before and after flights.
“If I don’t press the button one hour and 20 minutes before the flight, I’m in trouble,” a flight attendant, who didn’t wish to give her name, told the Militant at a CUPE rally in Montreal Aug. 17. “I have to go through customs, get to the gate, do a briefing with the rest of the crew, find out how many babies will be on board, check the evacuation routes, the equipment, serve champagne in business class.”
None of this is paid. “And I only get paid for 15 minutes after the flight even if I’ve got 460 passengers to unload. It takes a lot more than 15 minutes. I have sat for an hour waiting for all the wheelchairs.”
Details of the deal, to be voted on by flight attendants, are not yet available. In an Aug. 19 statement announcing the agreement, CUPE said, “Unpaid work is over.”
Underscoring the unions broad support, hundreds of workers attended CUPE-organized rallies in Montreal; Toronto; Calgary, Alberta; and Vancouver, British Columbia, Aug. 17. They were joined by other airline workers and an array of union leaders.
“This is a threat to the right to strike of all workers,” Teamsters Canada President Francois Laporte told the Montreal rally. Thousands of striking rail workers, members of the Teamsters, were ordered back to work last year.
‘An inspiration for all workers’
Teamsters came out to join picket lines across the country. In Vancouver, Dustin Saunders, chairperson of the Engineers division of Teamsters Canada Railway Conference Division 945, told the Militant, “The courage of CUPE flight attendants to defy the government’s back-to-work order is an inspiration for all workers.”
In Montreal, rail conductor and Teamsters member Mike Foucault said, “There’s a sense of urgency with repeated government interference slashing our rights. Rail workers, flight attendants, we don’t have the same working conditions but we all have big responsibilities for safety.”
Postal workers, ordered back to work last December, are following the fight closely. Marc-Edouard Joubert, president of the Montreal Regional Council of Quebec Federation of Labour and a postal worker, addressed the rally here. “The labor movement will not stay silent in face of repeated attacks,” he said.
The Canadian Labour Congress saluted the victory, saying, “Any employer thinking of leaning on Section 107 in the future should think twice.”
Katy LeRougetel, Communist League candidate for mayor of Montreal, joined the Aug. 17 CUPE rally.
“Flight attendants led a sharp confrontation between the organized union movement and the federal government,” she told the Militant. “Why are the rulers stepping up attacks on the right to strike? Because as the worldwide economic crisis of the capitalist system gets worse, they look to cripple workers’ ability to fight back.”