Air Canada: No union deal until flights resume

Air Canada says its flight attendants need to return to work before the airline can push on with negotiations, even as the union says it won’t end its now unlawful strike until a deal is reached at the bargaining table.

“We’re available and ready to work on an industry leading deal for our flight attendants, making them the best compensated in Canada, but we can’t do that while the planes are grounded,” said Air Canada chief operating officer Mark Nasr in an interview Monday evening.

Air Canada earlier Monday extended a cancellation of all Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flights through 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Nasr said the Canadian Union of Public Employees needs to direct flight attendants back to work because the Canada Industrial Relations Board has ruled the strike unlawful.

Earlier Monday, CUPE national president Mark Hancock said union leaders were all-in on pushing for a negotiated deal.

“If it means folks like me going to jail, then so be it. If it means our union being fined, then so be it. We’re looking for a solution here, our members want a solution here. But that solution has to be found at a bargaining table.”

The rising stakes of the impasse have left hundreds of thousands of travellers in limbo as timelines for a restart keep shifting.

Flight attendants were first ordered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board to return to work Sunday, after the federal government used Section 107 of the Labour Code to force the two sides into binding arbitration.

Union officials defied that order, leading the board to conclude Monday morning that the strike was unlawful, as it ordered the union to stand down and publicly tell its members to do the same by noon ET Monday, which the union also didn’t do.

CUPE and other labour leaders have cried foul over the federal government’s repeated use of Section 107 of the labour code to cut off workers’ right to strike and force them into arbitration, as the government has already done in recent years with workers at ports, railways and elsewhere.

“They can bandy about whatever terms they wish but the plain truth is that this order is unfair. It is corporate protection,” said the CUPE bargaining committee in a message to members, assuring members they will be supported in their continued strike.