Air Canada and its flight attendants are headed to mediation after workers overwhelmingly rejected the company’s latest wage offer.
But the conflict is not expected to result in flight cancellations or disruptions during mediation.
The company offer was an attempt to settle the last elements of a new contract for about 10,000 Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants.
Last month, the union accepted elements of a tentative deal, bringing a three-day strike to an end. Members had until Saturday to vote on wages.
CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said Saturday that 94 per cent of members turned out and voted 99.1 per cent against ratifying the deal.
.png)
“Air Canada never bargained in good faith on wages,” Wesley Lesosky, president of the Air Canada Component of CUPE, said in a press release.
CUPE and Air Canada will head to mediation to come to an agreement on compensation, according to the union.
The other elements of the deal — including measures to address unpaid work by flight attendants — will remain in place.
Current wage levels are from $26.42 per hour for Air Canada Rouge attendants and from $30.02 for Air Canada attendants, up to $63.07 per hour after 10 years of experience.
The previous agreement, which came into effect in 2015, secured a two per cent wage increase per year for 10 years. The B.C. consumer price index rose about 30 per cent over the past decade.
In March, the union told The Tyee it expected wages to be one of the biggest sticking points during negotiations.
Air Canada offered immediate pay increases of eight per cent for attendants who have worked at the airline longer than five years, and 12 per cent for flight attendants with less time on the job.
The airline offered an increase of three per cent in the second year, 2.5 per cent in the third year and 2.75 per cent in the fourth.
According to CUPE, the two sides will head to binding arbitration if the mediation doesn’t produce an agreement.
The already agreed-upon parts of the new deal include significant changes to the unpaid work flight attendants do on the ground.
Under the old contract, pay started when the plane left the gate and ended when it returned to the gate at the destination.
Air Canada agreed to pay flight attendants for up to 60 minutes of work before takeoff. During their first year, attendants will be paid at up to 50 per cent of their hourly rate. That rate will increase to 60 per cent during the second year and then five per cent per year in the third and fourth year.
Some North American airlines — including Porter Airlines, which CUPE organized last month — do pay flight attendants for some part of their ground work.
But CUPE, which now represents flight attendants at WestJet, Air Canada and Porter, said the Air Canada deal raises the bar.
“Unpaid work is over,” the union said in a release. “We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”
In an email, an Air Canada spokesperson said the airline will not comment on the agreement until ratification is complete.
Steven Tufts, a labour geographer at York University in Toronto, said the deal would make a significant change for all flight attendants in North America.
“This is a foundation to build on in the future,” Tufts said. “For the first time, companies have recognized in the collective agreement that unpaid work is being done and that ground work needs to be compensated.”
Tufts said the conditions of the deal will make it easier for flight attendants at smaller North American airlines to get compensated for their ground work.
“It’s a significant gain, and a significant change,” he said.
