Air Canada’s hostesses and stewards are continuing their strike on Monday despite a court decision having declared their work stoppage illegal, which paralyzes the country’s largest airline and has affected 500,000 people since Saturday.
Some 10,000 on-board agents have stopped work during the weekend to request salary increases and compensation for unpaid ground work, including on boarding.
A few hours later, the Canadian government, believing that the strike “directly affected the Canadian economy,” decided to intervene invoking a legal provision to suspend the strike and force both parties to binding arbitration.
But Air Canada employees chose on Sunday to challenge the injunction of the Canadian Industrial Relations Council (CCRI), a regulatory court, which had ordered them to resume work.
On Monday, they said again their determination and announced that they would not resume work, even if the regulators of the CCI increased the pressure by ordering on -board agents “to immediately resume their functions and refrain from participating in illegal strike activities”.
According to the Canadian national carrier, which directly serves 180 cities in Canada and abroad, the strike led to cancellations affecting 500,000 people.
“If Air Canada thinks that the planes will fly this afternoon, they will be totally wrong. It will not happen today,” said Mark Hancock, president of the Canadian Public Service Syndicate at a press conference.
“The most profitable companies use all the tools at their disposal to impose misery salaries and crush the rights of employees. The only objective of our members is to be paid for their working time,” added Candace Rennick, secretary-treasurer of the same union.
– “terrible previous” –
Speaking for the first time on the subject, Prime Minister Mark Carney told journalists in Ottawa on Monday that he was “disappointing” that eight months of negotiations between the carrier and the union did not resolve an agreement.
“We fully recognize the crucial role played by on -board agents to ensure the safety of Canadians and their families when they travel,” said Carney.
“It is important that they were fairly paid,” he added, before explaining that Canada found itself in front of hundreds of thousands of citizens and visitors confronted with a complicated situation.
During the weekend, the union had denounced the intervention of the government (thanks to section 107 of the Canada Labor Code), believing that this established a “terrible preceding” and rewarded “the refusal of Air Canada to negotiate fairly”.
A decision that also questions among labor law specialists, Rafael Gomez, professor at the University of Toronto, told AFP.
“Many work specialists and the community of labor law think that section 107 is used inappropriately,” he explains. “In particular because it is planned for a situation where strikes have lasted for a long time and where there is no possible outcome.”
The Canadian economy, although showing signs of resilience, is beginning to experience the effects of the trade war initiated by the American president, Donald Trump, with customs duties affecting crucial sectors for the country such as automotive, aluminum and steel.
In this context, the Canadian Business Council, which brings together leaders of more than a hundred large companies, said the strike was likely to cause “immediate and considerable damage to all Canadians”.
Posted on August 18 at 8:17 p.m., AFP
