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Planes are taxied at Toronto Pearson Worldwide Airport following the tip of the Air Canada labour strike, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, August 19, 2025.
Carlos Osorio | Reuters
Air Canada flight attendants overwhelmingly rejected a wage settlement on Saturday, with a bitter wage dispute now anticipated to be labored out via mediation as staff can not take additional authorized strike motion.
Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge voted 99.1% towards ratifying the corporate’s wage provide, the union mentioned.
Negotiators struck a tentative deal on August 19 to finish a four-day strike that stranded half one million passengers, after flight attendants defied Canadian authorities efforts to finish the strike and the nation’s largest service was pressured again to the bargaining desk.
Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Staff agreed that no labor disruption could possibly be initiated and due to this fact there will probably be no strike or lockout, so flights will proceed to function, the airline mentioned.
The wage portion of the deal will probably be referred to mediation and, if no settlement is reached at that stage, to arbitration, the airline mentioned.
The strike forged a highlight on calls for by North American flight attendants to be paid for hours from the time they verify in to once they clock out. Flight attendants at Air Canada and at a number of U.S. carriers resembling United Airways have been difficult a compensation construction that principally pays cabin crew when an plane is in movement.
Air Canada mentioned the settlement had included compensation for work carried out on the bottom and broad enhancements to wages, pensions and advantages.
Sara Nelson, worldwide president of the Affiliation of Flight Attendants, informed Reuters that public help for the Air Canada strike additionally helps her U.S. members. The AFA represents United’s flight attendants, who not too long ago rejected a tentative settlement partly over calls for for floor pay.
“The inspirational struggle of the Air Canada flight attendants is useful and creates momentum,” Nelson mentioned.
Disappointment over deal
Whereas the flight attendants managed to safe some crucial good points in Air Canada’s proposed contract, a number of informed Reuters that the general deal fell brief on the difficulty of unpaid labor.
The proposed four-year deal would have added as much as roughly a 20% wage hike for entry-level attendants and 16% for extra skilled cabin crew.
Crew would even have acquired 60 minutes of pre-flight pay on narrow-body planes and 70 minutes on wide-body jets, with pay beginning at 50% of flight attendants’ hourly price in 12 months one, rising to 70% by 12 months 4.
Flight attendants informed Reuters that the raises didn’t cowl their elevated value of residing, notably in high-cost cities resembling Toronto, with many doing two or three jobs to get by.
The deal was struck between Air Canada and the union with a mediator at a Toronto airport lodge, below the specter of legal expenses, the union’s president Mark Hancock mentioned.
“My understanding was the subsequent day, if there was no deal, they’d have gone to the courts and sought legal contempt, then expenses and fines,” Hancock informed Reuters. “It will have risen to the subsequent stage.”
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