The Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered airline staff back to work by 2pm Sunday after the government intervened and Air Canada said it planned to resume flights Sunday evening.
Canada’s largest airline now says it will resume flights Monday evening. Air Canada said in a statement that the union “illegally directed its flight attendant members to defy a direction from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board.”
“Our members are not going back to work,” Canadian Union of Public Employees national president Mark Hancock said outside Toronto's Pearson International Airport. “We are saying no.”
Hancock ripped up a copy of the back-to-work order outside the airport’s departures terminal where union members were picketing Sunday morning. He said they won't return Tuesday either.
Flight attendants chanted “Don’t blame me, blame AC” outside Pearson.
“Like many Canadians, the Minister is monitoring this situation closely. The Canada Industrial Relations Board is an independent tribunal," Jennifer Kozelj, a spokeswoman for Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said in a emailed statement.
Hancock said the “whole process has been unfair” and said the union will challenge what it called an unconstitutional order.
Less than 12 hours after workers walked off the job,Hajdu ordered the 10,000 flight attendants back to work, saying now is not the time to take risks with the economy and noting the unprecedented tariffs the U.S. has imposed on Canada. Hajdu referred the work stoppage to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
The airline said the CIRB has extended the term of the existing collective agreement until a new one is determined by the arbitrator.
The shutdown of Canada’s largest airline early Saturday was impacting about 130,000 people a day. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.
The bitter contract fight escalated Friday as the union turned down Air Canada’s prior request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which allows a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.
The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions, over four years, that it said “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada.”
But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first year didn’t go far enough because of inflation.
