The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees is deeply disappointed with the federal government’s imposition of binding arbitration between Air Canada and CUPE flight attendants. Barely hours into a legal strike, this action deserves the condemnation of all fair-minded Canadians. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the flight attendants and their union. An injustice to one group of workers is an injustice to all. Today it is the workers at Air Canada, tomorrow it could be airport workers or port workers or postal workers.
This interference in the collective bargaining process by the Liberal government tips the scale in favour of the employer and deprives the workers of their right to freely bargain and to withdraw their labour to ensure fair treatment and working conditions. Instead of ordering the flight attendants back to work, the federal government should be legislating Air Canada to pay their employees for all hours they have worked instead of insisting on unpaid labour.
We join with CUPE and the Canadian labour movement in condemning this action and we will be writing to Minister of Jobs and Families Patty Hajdu and Prime Minister Mark Carney to express our dismay and disappointment with their actions. We will always defend all workers’ right to strike and we pledge our ongoing support in the fight by flight attendants for fairness and respect at work.
In solidarity!
[…] of our many members who are currently in bargaining. As our National President Teresa Eschuk said at the time, “An injustice to one group of workers is an injustice to all. Today it is the workers at Air […]