The airline asked for an arbitration ordered by the government under article 107 of the Canadian Labor Code, but Ottawa did not indicate if it would intervene.
This request occurred while about 10,000 Air Canada and Red Air Canada online agents are ready to strike on Saturday shortly before 1 a.m., and that the company also plans to put them in lockout if a last minute agreement cannot be concluded.
Federal Minister of Employment, Patty Hajdu, asked the union to respond to the company’s request to return the parties to arbitration. The union told him that he was planning to do so on Friday at noon.
She urged the two parties to return to the negotiation table.
“To the parties: I strongly invite you to conclude an agreement – do not lose this precious time. Canadians are counting on you, ”she said in a statement published in the afternoon.
The minister also said that “federal mediators are willing and able to work with the parties 24 hours a day until they reach an agreement”.
Larry Savage, professor of labor law at BROCK University, judges that Air Canada uses his opinion as a lockout “as a means of pressure on the Prime Minister”, while the Liberal government led by Mark Carney faces its first major work stoppage of employees under federal regulation.
Far from being a first
Last year, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ottawa was called upon to intervene by enforceable arbitration in a possible strike by Air Canada pilots. Trudeau had said, however, that the government would only intervene if it was obvious that a negotiated agreement was impossible.
The airline and the union representing its pilots had finally concluded an agreement between them.
However, the federal government has adopted a different approach in other recent cases.
In August 2024, the Canada National Railway Company and the Pacific Canadian Kansas City had put more than 9,000 workers in lockout before the intervention of the Minister of Labor at the time, Steve Mackinnon. The latter had asked the Canadian Industrial Relations Council to order enforceable arbitration under article 107 of the Labor Code.
These regulations give the Minister the power to take measures to “promote good understanding in the world of work and to arouse conditions favorable to the disagreement or disputes that arise there”, in particular by subjecting the case to the Canadian Council for Industrial Relations.
When the workers of the British Columbia ports had sparked the strike in 2023, the Federal Labor Minister at the time, Seamus O’Regan, also used this mechanism to order the Council to impose final arbitration if a negotiated resolution was not possible.
“The management of Air Canada is strategically inspired by employers in ports and railways,” said Mr. Savage.
A disturbing appeal
Although he recognizes that there is a “long tradition” of government intervention in work conflicts in Canada, he believes that the growing recourse to measures ordered by ministers is “worrying” because It allows the Minister to act without any parliamentary debate, which would be necessary for governments to adopt a return to work law.
“This also highlights the ease with which rights to collective negotiation can be flouted,” said Savage. When the government only takes place at the request of employers, it undermines our entire work relationship system. ”
A representative of Air Canada said on Thursday that the airline recognized that the best solution would be to get out of the deadlock by negotiation.
Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Executive Vice-President and Air Canada Human Resources Head, also stressed that the company had offered the union the opportunity to resort to voluntary arbitration, which he rejected earlier this week.
An enforceable arbitration process would have suspended the union right to strike, as well as Air Canada’s right to put its members in a lockout. The Canadian Public Service Syndicate (SCFP) said they preferred to negotiate a collective agreement on which its members could then rule.
Ms. Meloul-Wechsler supported during a press conference that the company is always available for consensual arbitration, ensuring doing everything in its power to avoid arriving at a government intervention.
The union said, however, that Air Canada has been absent at the negotiating table since the deposit of Lock-out advice. The Air Canada component of the SCFP said that he has still not received a company’s response to its last counter-offer filed on Tuesday.
“The company is counting on the Liberal government and Minister Hajdu to intervene and save the situation,” said National President of the SCFP, Mark Hancock. It is a question of intervening and crushing the strike before it explodes. I am here to transmit a strong message (…) that we will not let it happen, that we will have a collective agreement when our members who work for Air Canada will decide that we have a collective agreement that suits them. ”
Barry Eidlin, an associate professor of sociology at McGill University, is disappointed to see the negotiations in standby.
He described Air Canada’s approach to “predictable result of the pernicious effect of repeated federal interventions in work conflicts”.
“The 72-hour strike notice aims to create this final attempt to reach an agreement at the negotiating table,” he said.
“What is now happening with the government’s repeated appeal in article 107 of the labor code (…) is that employers no longer feel this pressure, because they believe that they can simply let the strike take place and wait for the government to intervene and refers the case to enforceable arbitration,” he added.
According to Eidlin, workers’ negotiation position is greatly improved if the Carney government was taking a position against any intervention.
“If the government really indicated that it would not intervene, it would really force the company,” he said. I think we would attend a form of understanding, because the economic pressure would be enormous. ”
– With information from Natasha Baldin in Toronto
Company mentioned in this dispatch: (TSX: AC)
