On the heels of Air Canada recently trying to get the federal government to bring the hammer down on striking flight attendants instead of bringing themselves to the bargaining timetable with a fair contract, it looks like they messed up again.
Air Canada was under fire from the general public during the strike after a successful public relations from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the company’s 10,000 flight attendants, raised awareness on unpaid labour that these workers perform.
Typically, Air Canada, like other Canadian airlines, pays flight attendants for labour they perform only when the plane is moving, what they call “block to block time”. Some flight attendants provide up to 35 hours a month in labour that Air Canada never pays for. That is a week’s worth of free labour (at 7 hours per day) every month.
When the company refused to meet the workers’ demands, workers voted 99.7% to strike. Instead of responding to that strike mandate by conceding to the workers’ offer, Air Canada tried to convince the jobs minister, Patty Hadju, to use the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to interfere with the workers’ constitutionally guaranteed right to strike, just as the Liberals have done 6 other times since being elected in 2015.
Workers refused to stop striking, even after the government made it illegal by invoking section 107 of the Canada Labour Code. This forced Air Canada back to the table with a modified offer, and the workers called off their strike.
If that was not bad enough, the company sent out an message last Friday to tell the flight attendants, along with pilots that their pay was going to be delayed.
Instead of being paid before the long weekend, as is usually the case with large employers, workers would have to wait until after the long weekend before receiving their paychques.
Air Canada claims it was a “human error”, which seems convenient but possible.
Here is the text of the message.
Flight Pay Advance for Pilots and Flight Attendants
Dear Colleague,
We are writing to bring to your attention an error that has occurred with your pay advance. Unfortunately, as pay advances for pilots and flight attendants were being processed, a human error occurred, the result of which is that the long weekend was not properly accounted for.
Because September 01 is a statutory holiday, the advance will unfortunately not be in your account on September 01 but will be deposited the next day.
We understand that you rely on a consistent deposit date and were expecting the advance to be paid before the long weekend. We sincerely apologize for any undue stress this has caused and want to assure you this was a human error and not in any way done on purpose.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Flight Payroll Delivery
The Alberta Worker received a copy of the message, which was captured in a screenshot.
