Flight attendants won't be 'returning to the skies' after ongoing Air Canada strike deemed 'unlawful'
OTTAWA — The head of the national union representing Air Canada flight attendants said he’s ready to go to jail as he called on members to continue the strike deemed illegal by a federal labour tribunal Monday.
“We will not be returning to the skies,” Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) national president Mark Hancock told reporters Monday afternoon.
“If it means folks like me (are) going to jail, so be it. If it means our union being fined, then so be it,” he added. “We are sorry the public is caught up in this… That was not something that we wanted to be an impact.”
Hancock was responding to a Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) decision Monday morning that the ongoing Air Canada flight attendant strike is illegal and that their union’s direction to keep striking is “unlawful.”
The CIRB decision came one day after it ordered flight attendants back to work shortly after the Mark Carney Liberals invoked a controversial authority in the Canada Labour Code to demand the tribunal put an end to the work stoppage.
The decision by Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu has now shifted the focus of the conflict from the tense relationship between Air Canada and its flight attendants to the Liberal government’s repeated and disputed recent use of section 107 of the Labour Code.
The article allows the minister to direct the CIRB to do what she deems necessary to “maintain or secure industrial peace” or create favourable conditions for a deal during labour disputes.
Shortly after the CIRB decision Sunday ordering an end to the strike that began early Saturday morning, CUPE leadership — which represents Air Canada’s flight attendants — publicly ripped up the order and exhorted members to keep striking.
After new hearings on Sunday regarding the legality of the ongoing strike, the CIRB issued its new decision on Monday giving CUPE leadership until noon eastern Monday to declare the strike over.
“The Board finds that the union’s direction to its members to not resume their work duties is a declaration or authorization of strike activity when the collective agreement is in force which is, therefore, an unlawful strike,” reads the CIRB decision shared by Air Canada .
“The union and its officers are ordered to immediately cease all activities that declare or authorize an unlawful strike of its members and to direct the members of the bargaining unit to resume the performance of their duties,” the board added.
In a statement, Air Canada said it estimated that 500,000 travellers’ flights were cancelled in recent days due to the ongoing labour dispute. In an interview with BNN Bloomberg, CEO Michael Rousseau said he hoped service could resume Tuesday.
Saturday, after less than one day of work stoppage, federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu directed the CIRB to order both parties to resume operations and resolve their lingering labour dispute through binding arbitration.
To do so, she invoked powers under section 107 of Canada Labour Code, an increasingly controversial power that the Liberals have used roughly a handful of times over the past decade to order federally-legislated industries back to work without going through back-to-work legislation.
In an interview, former CUPE Quebec Director Marc Ranger said that this “extreme crisis” is likely becoming the flagship test of the government’s ability to demand that an independent tribunal order the end of a labour dispute through section 107.
Justin Trudeau’s government invoked section 107 multiple times to order binding arbitration and end a work stoppage in recent years, including during a strike at the Port of Montreal, multiple rail strikes as well as a weeks-long work stoppage at Canada Post in late December.
All those invocations are currently being appealed in court, a process that can take up to a decade if the issue makes its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
So, Ranger says, CUPE has likely assessed that this conflict — in which flight attendants enjoy broad public support and the government cut the strike short after only one day — is the right one to make a stand against section 107.
“CUPE assessed that it was the perfect file to push back, defy, and declare that enough is enough,” he said. “The goal is to end the recourse to section 107 and to do it in a spectacular way by defying this order.”
Hajdu’s decision has sparked the ire of all major federal unions, who said in a joint statement through the Canadian Labour Congress Sunday that they stood behind Air Canada flight attendants’ decision to keep striking.
CLC President Bea Bruske said in a statement that union heads came out of an emergency meeting Sunday evening “with a clear message to push back against the government’s attacks on workers’ rights: an attack on one is an attack on all.”
On Monday morning, Carney said it’s important that flight attendants be compensated fairly but did not address the union revolt against his government’s recent order.
“It is disappointing that those negotiations did not come to an agreement. It was the judgement of both the union and the company that they were at an impasse,” Carney noted as he entered a meeting with Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
“We are in a situation where literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians and visitors to our country are being disrupted by this action. I urge both parties to resolve this as quickly as possible,” he added.
National Post, with files from The Canadian Press.
cnardi@postmedia.com
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