Air Canada flight attendants have overwhelmingly rejected a wage agreement, with a bitter wage dispute now expected to be worked out through mediation as workers cannot take further legal strike action.
Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge voted 99.1 per cent against ratifying the company’s wage offer, the union said.
Negotiators struck a tentative deal on August 19 to end a four-day strike that stranded half a million passengers, after flight attendants defied Canadian government efforts to end the strike and the country’s largest carrier was forced back to the bargaining table.
Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees agreed that no labour disruption could be initiated and therefore there will be no strike or lockout, so flights will continue to operate, the airline said.
The wage portion of the deal will be referred to mediation and, if no agreement is reached at that stage, to arbitration, the airline said.
The strike cast a spotlight on demands by North American flight attendants to be paid for hours from the time they check in to when they clock out. Flight attendants at Air Canada and at multiple US carriers such as United Airlines have been challenging a compensation structure that mostly pays cabin crew when an aircraft is in motion.
Air Canada said the agreement had included compensation for work performed on the ground and broad improvements to wages, pensions and benefits.
Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told Reuters that public support for the Air Canada strike also helps her US members.
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