Air Canada flight attendants reject wage agreement

Air Canada formation attendants overwhelmingly rejected a wage statement connected Saturday, with a bitter wage quality present expected to beryllium worked retired done mediation arsenic workers cannot instrumentality further ineligible onslaught action.

Flight attendants astatine Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge voted 99.1% against ratifying the company's wage offer, the national said.

Negotiators struck a tentative woody connected August 19 to extremity a four-day onslaught that stranded fractional a cardinal passengers, aft formation attendants defied Canadian authorities efforts to extremity the onslaught and the country's largest bearer was forced backmost to the bargaining table.

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees agreed that nary labour disruption could beryllium initiated and truthful determination volition beryllium nary onslaught oregon lockout, truthful flights volition proceed to operate, the hose said.

The wage information of the woody volition beryllium referred to mediation and, if nary statement is reached astatine that stage, to arbitration, the hose said.

The onslaught formed a spotlight connected demands by North American formation attendants to beryllium paid for hours from the clip they cheque successful to erstwhile they timepiece out. Flight attendants astatine Air Canada and astatine aggregate U.S. carriers specified arsenic United Airlines person been challenging a compensation operation that mostly pays compartment unit erstwhile an craft is successful motion.

Air Canada said the statement had included compensation for enactment performed connected the crushed and wide improvements to wages, pensions and benefits.

Sara Nelson, planetary president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told Reuters that nationalist enactment for the Air Canada onslaught besides helps her U.S. members. The AFA represents United's formation attendants, who precocious rejected a tentative statement partially implicit demands for crushed pay.

"The inspirational combat of the Air Canada formation attendants is adjuvant and creates momentum," Nelson said.

While the formation attendants managed to unafraid immoderate captious gains successful Air Canada's projected contract, respective told Reuters that the wide woody fell abbreviated connected the contented of unpaid labor.

The projected four-year woody would person added up to astir a 20% wage hike for entry-level attendants and 16% for much experienced compartment crew.

Crew would besides person received 60 minutes of pre-flight wage connected narrow-body planes and 70 minutes connected wide-body jets, with wage starting astatine 50% of formation attendants' hourly complaint successful twelvemonth one, rising to 70% by twelvemonth four.

Flight attendants told Reuters that the raises did not screen their accrued outgo of living, peculiarly successful high-cost cities specified arsenic Toronto, with galore doing 2 oregon 3 jobs to get by.

The woody was struck betwixt Air Canada and the national with a mediator astatine a Toronto airdrome hotel, nether the menace of transgression charges, the union's president Mark Hancock said.

"My knowing was the adjacent day, if determination was nary deal, they would person gone to the courts and sought transgression contempt, past charges and fines," Hancock told Reuters. "It would person risen to the adjacent level."