Front Burner - What the Air Canada strike is really about

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

It was a chaotic weekend for anyone flying with Air Canada. The airline canceled hundreds of flights after 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job. Less than 12 hours later, federal jobs minister Patty Hajdu had ordered them back to work — but the union took the unusual step of defying that order and continuing the strike.The main sticking points for the union had been wages and "ground work" — that is, pay for time spent working when the plane is not moving, which most airlines don't do. But now, some experts argue it's become the latest example of the federal government rushing to tip the scales in labour disputes and undermining the bargaining process.CBC senior business reporter Anis Heydari explains how the situation got so messy, and why other airlines across North America — and their workers — are so invested in the outcome.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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What do we want? Where do we want? It has been a chaotic weekend for anyone traveling with Air Canada. About 10,000 striking flight attendants walked off the day. job Saturday morning. Air Canada said about 700 flights were cancelled, stranding more than 100,000 passengers. But only hours later, federal jobs minister, Patty Heidu, ordered them back to work. Listen, in today's decision, this is about industrial peace and the safety of Canadians. Then, on Sunday, flight attendants took the unusual step of defying that order, refusing to go

back to work. QP, the union representing the flight attendants, claims the return to work. order violates their member's charter rights. I think your candidate has to warn to not call mommy and daddy every time they reach an impasse at the bargaining table. They have to actually sit down and get a deal done with their workers. So now, the workers on those picket lines are no longer out there just because of wages and working conditions. For the union, this is also about the way the liberal government has increasingly used a specific

type of back-to-work order that some critics say is undermined. the labor movement as a whole. We're taping this episode early Sunday evening, and we know plenty could change overnight. So what we wanted to do was give you a primer on the context you need to understand the story as it continues to unfold. Today on the podcast, we've got CBC's Ennis Hedari.

He's a senior business reporter based in our Calgary Bureau, and he's been watching the story very closely. Hey, Anise, thanks for coming on the show. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. So we're talking at about 5 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. And as I was just saying, there could, of course, be a lot more developments between now and Monday morning when people will be listening to this. But can you give us just a snapshot of what's been happening over the last couple of hours? So what we've seen is a group of workers represented by QP,

these flight attendants were ordered to go back to work to undergo binding arbitration with their employer by what people will call the Labor Board, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board. They were ordered that early Sunday morning. And the union said, we're not going to go back to work. We're going to keep picketing. We want to bargain an agreement with Air Canada. We don't want binding arbitration. And so we're not going back to work.

to legislate us back to work 12 hours after we started. I'm sorry, snowstorms have shut down Air Canada for longer than we were allowed to strike. So I'm not sure what's going on in the background. I'm not part of the legal bargaining team. But our position right here is Air Canada is not telling us to go back to work. The government is not telling us to go back to work. Our union will tell us when we go back to work. And then as the day went on, you know, Air Canada had announced that it was going to start resuming flights slowly.

and then it had to change its mind functionally because its workers said they weren't going to come back. And Air Canada said we're canceling more flights. But then as we're sort of hitting the end of business on this Sunday, everything is – I was going to say everything's up in the air, pun not intended. The workers are still not willing to go back to work. Air Canada hasn't resumed flights. We are waiting to see who makes the next move.

And in this state of flux, can you give us a sense of – of what it's been like at Canadian airports this weekend? I mean, the word chaos has come up from a lot of reporters and in a lot of coverage. You have really thousands of travelers at various either airports or at home, not going to the airport they plan to go to who have their flights canceled. There isn't enough capacity on alternative carriers to pick up the slack for everyone who isn't flying on-air Canada and there's been a are they going back to work aren't they going back to work vibe for at least part of one day while you've also had picket lines and a lot of people

protesting at these airports so it's been it's been crowded is maybe the most neutral way to put it but it's not just been flight attendants who have been picketing there have been people from many other unions from many other sectors in Canadian labor picketing at these airports along with the flight attendants supporting them. Okay, let's rewind here a bit and give people some context. So Air Canada and the flight attendants have been in contract talks for like around eight months or so before the flight attendants went on strike on Saturday. What have been the major sticking points in this labor dispute?

Like, what are the two sides arguing here? So the two biggest things that they are still fighting about are wages, the hourly wage, and what's been called ground pay. And, you know, to understand the dispute around wages, that's fairly common. You know, Air Canada is offering a wage increase. The airline's saying their latest offer of 38% raise, including benefits, that would make Air Canada the best compensated flight attendants in the country. Bargaining team member Natasha Staya says the airline isn't being truthful.

No, we're not the highest paid. And with the increase that they're proposing, we still would not be the highest paid. The flight attendants union is saying that's not enough. It doesn't make up for how much costs have gone up with inflation over the past few years. How our Canada is calculating the wage increases they're offering and how the union is calculating what they say Air Canada is offering are different. So you have heard a few different numbers out there in the public. But needless to say, Air Canada is offering a certain amount, the flight attendants have said it's not enough. Ground pay is where things can get a little bit complicated and I think surprising for many Canadians. Ground pay refers to what flight attendants are paid when they are on the ground, when the plane is not in the air. And in many situations, they're actually not paid for time that they have to put in as a part of their job

to get the job done. If they're not in the air, they're not paid for that time per hour. And they want to be. And Air Canada has made some offers that would give them some pay for some of that time, but it has fallen far short for the flight attendants, at least in terms of both how they have voted when they voted, you know, 99.7% for a strike mandate and how they are certainly reacting to it now with the picket line. It's not been enough. So you can definitely count me among the Canadians who were surprised to find find out that a flight attendants don't get paid for time on the ground. How common, though, is that practice in the industry?

It is extremely common in North American aviation. It has been the practice for decades, and not just in Canada, but also in the United States. The idea has been that their hourly wage has been a little bit higher, and it would make up for the fact that they aren't paid for those hours on the ground. that does not hold anymore according to the flight attendants and their unions and not just Air Canada flight attendants at Kupi. They don't feel that their hourly wages when they're in the air make up for the fact that they are not paid when they are on the ground. But the fact that it's just how it's been done, it's not carrying water for them anymore. So how come, what's changed for this issue to suddenly come to a head right now?

It's hard to have exact statistics on this. What we are hearing colloquially and anecdotally is there are way more delays on the ground than there used to be, especially since COVID. But also the boarding process takes longer. The disembarking process can take longer. There are more people with more bags trying to squeeze them. into those airplanes. And so everything that you're doing before and after the flight, including required safety checks, just seems to take longer.

At least that's what the flight attendants are saying. And I think certainly Canadians who fly quite often would probably have their own impression as to whether it takes longer before and after a flight as opposed to, you know, maybe five or ten years ago. Okay, so I mean, I need to keep kind of painting a picture here of this labor dispute potentially being watched very closely by other flight attendant unions and other airline carriers because this potentially could set a fairly important precedent within the industry. Yeah, it's certainly being watched by flight attendants across the continent and definitely in Canada, West Jets flight attendants, who are also represented by QP, their contract expires at the end of this year. And so certainly the same union and the same industry in our own country are watching this to see what happens at Air Canada because what comes at Air Canada will likely have to come at WestJet for them to remain competitive in terms of attracting staffers. But in the U.S., this is coming up with airlines there a lot.

American Airlines, which is a unionized airline, have gotten some language around being paid for ground time. Delta Airlines is offering a little bit of pay for ground time to its flight attendants. Now, Delta is not unionized, and it is widely regarded in the industry that Delta did this to try and avoid motivating their flight attendants to sign union cards. Porter Airlines in Canada is offering a little bit of pay for ground time. And they are now just recently being unionized with QP, but this is something that is catching up. on in the industry in terms of a demand, and it is something that some airlines are starting to pay for to try and avoid labor strife, which clearly Air Canada has not avoided it, but everyone in the airline industry is watching this very closely. Okay, so that brings us to this weekend. Just before 1 a.m. on Saturday, more than 10,000 flight attendants went on strike, which led to the chaos you were talking about earlier.

And then by noon on Saturday, only about 12 hours after the strike began, Jobs Minister, Patty Heidu, ordered the flight attendants back to work and binding arbitration between Air Canada and the Union, which means no more bargaining, an arbitrator will decide what the work contract will be. So there's lots to break down there. But can you start by talking to us about Heidu's rationale for intervening so soon after the strike got underway? So what the minister is used is something called section 107 of the labor code. And I will overly paraphrase here in a way that some lawyers may cringe at. But essentially what she is saying is that she needs to maintain industrial peace in Canada. And to do that, she's ordering the Labor Board, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board, to impose this binding arbitration and to order them back to work.

So, and if we rewind a little bit over the past few days, the federal government through the minister has been speaking with both the union and the employer multiple times and has repeatedly said that, you know, the government believes the best deal is found at the bargaining table, not through binding arbitration, but that the two sides don't seem able to come to an agreement and don't seem to get there. And so by the time we hit this order being issued, the rationale is, well, they just can't come to a deal. and the airline industry and passenger service and cargo service and all of that jazz, it is too important to the Canadian economy and to, again, industrial peace to allow them to be off the job. So that's where this order comes from. That's where the rationale comes from. The trouble, of course, is that the minister intervened very quickly after the labor dispute began and may have caught some folks off guard.

it was a little bit of a surprise in some circles. Did the minister give any kinds of specific examples in terms of the kinds of economic activity that needed to be prioritized for her to intervene so quickly? You know, she had mentioned things like shipments of pharmaceuticals, organ tissues, things that, you know, really have to go on an airplane because they need to get there quickly. Honestly, as I'm not a transportation expert, I can't say whether there would have been alternatives. But she did have examples of like this stuff. has got to get where it's going on time. And so the Canadian economy cannot afford to have

our biggest airline grounded. Last year, Canadians paid a high price when multiple key sectors went on strike. Inaction at the bargaining table had a massive impact on Canadian families and our entire economy. Arbitration is the most stable way to conclude this process for Canadians while allowing parties to reach a deal. And the union, from my understanding, was very much opposed to the idea of going to arbitration, right? Yeah, the union is opposed to the idea of arbitration. The flight attendants will not get to vote yes or no to a deal if it goes to arbitration. The arbitrator will say, here you go, and it's in the name, binding arbitration.

It's binding. The other, and I would say bigger concern for a bargainer, a union like QPee, what QPee is looking for in terms of the amount of ground pay they want, that does not exist in most other airline contracts in Canada and not really in the United States either. Arbitrators don't tend to create new contract language. They tend to take precedence that exist already in a contract or maybe in a competitor's contract and they tweak them and they'll add some extra money. And so CUPI, who is looking to get something brand new for their members, ground pay, doesn't want to go to arbitration because arbitration often does not create something new.

And the entire point of what we're trying to do is break the status quo. We have an archaic pay system where we don't get paid until the aircraft is moving. And it's just not right. And 90% of Canadians support that. They support that we should be getting paid when we're at work. At Desjardin Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business, to be exact. Our agents take the time to understand your company so you get the right coverage at the right price.

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and the underlying conditions that allowed the Holocaust to happen. on now exclusively at ROM. Tickets at ROM.ca. I want to talk a bit more about the section of the labor code, section 107 that the minister invoked. My understanding was that there was a time, you know, not so long ago when Section 107 was rarely used. But now it seems that's no longer the case as being used more and more. How and when did you notice that change? So typically in the past, when a labor dispute was not getting.

resolved, you would hear talk of back-to-work legislation, and it was literally legislation. If the government wanted to send a group of workers back on the job, they would have to pass a law and have all the associated, you know, drama and debate and procedures that come with that. What Section 107 is, in some respects, and again, lawyers will throw things at me, I've been calling it the Simon Says provision, because essentially it allows the minister to, you know, to say, and we saw it in this case, while we think you should go to arbitration, no, well, we think you should go to arbitration, no. Simon says, go to arbitration using Section 107.

Okay. And if we've rewind quite a few years, and we go back to under the Harper government, there was a labor dispute that was becoming intractable. It actually involved Air Canada. And the Minister of Labor at the time, Lisa Raid, was like, I'm going to use Section 107 to order this if you don't go to arbitration, if you don't get back to the table. And that hadn't really been done in that way before. And what ended up happening there was both sides were like, okay, we'll go to arbitration. And they just agreed. So it didn't really officially get used to them.

But then if we fast forward to the Trudeau government, there were quite a few different labor disputes. You know, some of them involved ports, railways, Westjet, mechanics, and now are Canada. where instead of passing back-to-work legislation, they have just used the Simon Says Law, Section 107. They've said, I am ordering the board to do this binding arbitration to maintain industrial peace. And it hasn't had to go through legislation. It hasn't had to go through all of that process.

It's easier. A minister just has to say that they want it. But it's been raising a lot of hackles with labor unions because all of a sudden all of these checks and balances that were there in legislation aren't there anymore. Let's talk about some of those concerns. So QP said Haidu's decision in this Air Canada case, quote, sets a terrible precedent. They also said that Haidu is, quote, crushing flight attendance charter rights by forcing arbitration. Talk to me a bit more, Anise, about the concerns that the union and the Canadian labor movement more generally.

Talk to me about their concerns about how the liberals are using. section 107 and where they're worried that this could lead. When you just wave a magic wand and you say, we're going to send you back to work right away, especially after only a few hours of a labor dispute, you are, at least according to labor experts, sort of tilting the scales a little bit. Because one of the things that comes up in bargaining is if you don't get to a deal and your workers strike, your workers are not making money while they're on strike. I realize strike pay exists and that unions pay it.

It's always far less than you make when you're actually doing your job in almost every circumstance. So on the part of the union, the risk is that their members will make less money for a lengthy period of time. And for the business, the risk is that you don't have anyone working so you can't make any money. So that risk of everyone losing money is a motivator to come to a deal yourselves. But when the federal government repeatedly steps in and says, well, we're just going to send them back to work if you can't get to a deal, you've taken away the urgency of that threat. At least that's what we've heard from, honestly, almost every labor expert in the country and unions themselves. We had one labor expert on CBC News Network who said, you know, Air Canada now thinks that it can just run to Mommy and Daddy when it can't come to a deal at the table. and it's a little crass, but that is part of what labor experts are saying is the problem now,

is because the federal government keeps intervening, they've taken away the incentive for both unions and the employer to come to a deal because everybody knows if you don't come to a deal, the government will force one anyway. The other side of this is that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in the past that the right to strike is a charter right. And so one of the legal criticisms that's coming out is that when the federal government uses just an order, they use Section 107, wave their magic wand and say, go back to work, that a simple memo from a minister is overriding a charter right. And that's another concern that's coming up as well. And, you know, and as you mentioned off the top that, you know, on the picket lines at different airports, we're seeing not just QPie members picketing, but.

members of other unions present as well, is one of the reasons because the labor movement as a whole is looking at this use of Section 107 and saying, oh, no, we could be next? Yeah, this goes beyond unions standing together. There have already been concerns expressed by some of Canada's biggest unions about how Section 107 is being used and how quickly employers and unions are being sent into binding arbitration to avoid a labor dispute. And there is definitely a concern there that this is not just about Air Canada and Kupi in 2025, but that this could be something that affects every unionized worker in Canada at any point in the future.

So one of the developments this weekend on Sunday, the flight attendants union defied the back-to-work order, how unusual is that? And legally, what are the consequences of that action? It's certainly not common for a union and its members to just say, no, we won't do that. We're going to do what we would like to do in the first place, which is strike. It's not completely unprecedented for a union to, you know, undergo a, a, a protest strike, a wildcat strike, an illegal strike, whatever you might call it. But it is eyebrow raising. It's unusual. As for what the consequences will be, the federal government has many different powers at its disposal and consequences. Maybe they find the union. Maybe they find

the workers. Maybe there are some form of charges filed. I mean, that would be quite extreme. But there's all sorts of options available to the federal government here. I will be honest with you. I really am not sure where they will go with this one. I don't know that anyone expected, at least on the government and the employer side, for the union to just say no. Certainly Air Canada had said that it was going to resume its flights. And then as it got closer to the time it said it was going to resume,

it went, well, we can't because the workers have said they're not coming back to work. But when the order was first issued, Air Canada seemed pretty confident that it was going to get back in the air. So I don't know that they expected that this was going to happen. What's your sense of why the union then took that fairly extraordinary step? This is a union, a group of workers, at least the Air Canada component of QP, who have voted very strongly in favor of striking. It was more than 99% voted in favor of striking with a close to 95% 94% voter turnout. so these workers clearly are ready to walk a picket line to get what they want and with only a few hours off the job to be sent back and to be told whatever is decided by an arbitrator is what you're going to get you don't even get to vote yes or no i think you've got a really motivated group of workers here who are feeling very tired of working conditions that right or wrong

they don't consider acceptable anymore. And really the only tool that they have is to withdraw their labor. And the federal government and the Industrial Relations Board tried to take that tool away. So I'm not entirely surprised that a group of workers this upset

chose to be defiant. You know, on Friday, the day before the strike started, Abakasdata released a survey that found 59% of Canadians polled sympathized with the flight attendants compared to just about 12% who sympathized with Air Canada,

30% so they were unsure of who to side with. But, you know, the headline number was basically that five times more people sided with the workers versus the company. What does that say to you? You know, I think first of all, first of all, when you have a conflict with a company like Air Canada as a consumer, you can be in a really bad situation. You might not be at home.

You may be on the hook for a lot of money. So Air Canada is not a company that Canadians may feel a lot of sympathy to in the first place. So to be fair to them, I don't know that Air Canada would have a chance in a popularity contest. But I think the other side of this is that ground pay issue that we were talking about before. I think to many Canadians, and certainly we see it in that poll, the idea that you are forced to work hours, that you don't have a choice, but to be at work and doing work, you know, safety checks on the like, for hours that you aren't paid for that that is an easy to understand problem right people think you should be paid for the time that you put in the flip side for air Canada though i have to be fair

here they have existed in an industry that didn't pay for that and doesn't pay for that in many cases and that has been something that flight attendants and their unions have agreed to in some cases for generations and so from the company's perspective they are being asked to drastically change their financial model and the amount of money that they have to pay. And that can be a very tough pill to swallow. But clearly from that poll you're mentioning and from what we're seeing with the flight attendants, it is a pill that both the public and the flight attendants seem to think is a priority for Air Canada to swallow. Anise, thank you so much for coming on and walking us through all this. You're welcome. I'm happy to be here.

All right, that's it for Frontburns today. I'm Jonathan Momitzy and for Jamie Poisson. We'll talk to you tomorrow.