The Canadian Union of Public Employees reached a tentative labor agreement with Air Canada early Tuesday morning, ending a work stoppage that had shuttered the airline’s operations over the last three days.
The union, which represents around 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, lauded the new agreement, claiming it will provide “transformational change for our industry after a historic fight to affirm our Charter rights.” The contract now goes to the flight attendants, who must vote on the proposed agreement before it goes into effect.
While Air Canada will gradually begin restarting operations after the agreement was reached, with some flights scheduled to resume Tuesday evening, the carrier said that it may require seven-to-10 days before normal operations resume due to aircraft and crew being out of position.
“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. Our priority now is to get them moving as quickly as possible,” said Michael Rousseau, president and chief executive officer of Air Canada. “Restarting a major carrier like Air Canada is a complex undertaking. Full restoration may require a week or more, so we ask for our customers’ patience and understanding over the coming days.”
The airline stated that it will not comment on the contents of the agreement until it is fully ratified.
As a result of the strike, Air Canada estimates that more than 500,000 people have been affected by flight cancellations. Since the initial work stoppage on August 16, the airline has cancelled 2,247 flights, according to data from FlightAware.
How stoopid does someone have to be to run Air Canada?
Not paying F/As for work time like safety briefing is not sustainable.
Cost to AC for disruption of operations will be high, directly and in future avoidance by potential customers.
Union went to the wall, risking fines and jail time for executives by violating government order.
(Gummint erred by getting involved - let the marketplace decide, employees will by moving to competition.
Gummint errs in restricting competition by laws on ownership.)
A factor working against motivation to Move On is union seniority rules.
Workers have to start at bottom with new employer.
Employees at top of seniority list get preference for flights to crew
Pacific Western would have changed that substantially, so that flights through mountains in winter weather on up to 10 legs would have very experienced pilots not just newbies.
Existing rules let those senior pilots go to Toronto for ten days flying then have the rest of the month off as they reached their monthly cap of hours.
Union Strong !income inequality was bred when unions did not exit .
Your post is not clear.
It is obvious that unions are not anywhere near perfect.
The best approach is individual freedom supported by justice and defense systems, which lets good businesses prosper and bad fail.
(I demolish the notion of monopolies in ARE MONOPOLIES POSSIBLE?.
AC is propped up by government force - laws restricting ownership.)
Hello Keith ,I respectfully disagree. In an Adam smith universe , the invisible hand would ring true , we have seen over and over again unbridled capitalism is just as destructive to the economy and society in general as pure socialism is. Unions are necessary to curb managements proclivity to maximize profit over all else. As far as I can see Democratic socialism is the way to go. Thank you for your thoughts.
You realize no pay prior to brake release is the international industry standard.