Back in April, Local 8125 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees posted an update on their website regarding contract negotiations with WestJet.
CUPE represents about 4,400 cabin workers employed by WestJet’s mainline service, as well as 360 cabin workers with their Encore service.
Workers employed on the mainline have been without a new collective agreement since their previous agreement expired at the end of last year. Encore workers will need a new collective agreement, too, after theirs expires next month.
Bargaining for the mainline cabin workers began last September, just days after they filed their notice to bargain with WestJet.
However, based on April’s update, ongoing negotiations over more than 7 months “have not produced sufficient progress on key issues”. Negotiations during this period have averaged 3 weeks per month.
Like with CUPE members employed by Air Canada who went on strike last year, one of these key issues is unpaid work, which can average as many as 35 hours a month—basically a week of full-time labour.
“Flight attendants are performing increasingly demanding work in a safety-sensitive environment, and we are some of the lowest paid in Canada”, said Alia Hussain, president of CUPE 8125. “The system that governs our compensation was built for a different time, and it no longer reflects the value of work being done today.”
The bargaining team for the workers is also pushing for improvements in scheduling and working conditions.
These proposals are based on feedback the committee had received from the workers.
In April, the workers’ bargaining committee proposed an “ambitious” monetary package to WestJet’s bargaining team. An update that month claimed that these workers “remain among some of the lowest paid” in the industry and that their “compensation has fallen behind the industry”.
“The practice of low wages and unpaid work cannot continue, and our proposals are a direct reflection of this,” the update said. “WestJet can no longer profit from the discounted labour of its Cabin Personnel.”
Cameron Jones, host of In the Jumpseat, a podcast for the WestJet Component of CUPE, said in a recent episode that “We know that members want a deal that reflects the work we perform and compensation that’s not hovering around minimum wage or potentially less for some of our junior crew”.
WestJet claims that cabin crew workers are paid between $28.45 and $53.61 per credit hour. A credit hour is equal to 1.5 duty hours and combines flight time, ground duties, delays, and other required work into one pay rate. It is based on just flight time, but then the pay is credited across the full on-duty shift, including non-flight time.
The company argues that if they paid for all labour directly, rather than using a credit system, they would have to reduce the hourly rate.
Also, keep in mind that WestJet guarantees workers only 80 hours per month for full-time works, which averages out to about only 20 hours per week.
As a result of progress stalling, the workers’ bargaining committee announced in April that it had filed a formal notice of dispute with the Canadian Industrial Relations Board and had requested conciliation assistance from the CIRB.
Conciliation is a structured and time-bound phase—at least 60 days—that pressures the two parties to make progress at the bargaining table by introducing a third party.
In a recent episode of In the Jumpseat, Hussain said, “At a certain point, staying in the same phase of bargaining just allows things to drag. Filing a notice of dispute is about shifting the process and creating momentum again”.
Last month, the workers’ bargaining committee announced that the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service had assigned two conciliation officers to the case: Michelle D. Glubrecht and Kimberley Cunha-Bellem.
The 60-day period officially began on 12 May 2026 and will end on 11 July 2026.
Should the conciliation officers fail to help the two parties reach a tentative agreement and the two parties refuse to extend the conciliation period, it would trigger a 21-day cooling off period.
Following the cooling-off period, the workers could theoretically go on strike, following a strike vote from the workers. That being said, WestJet could also lock them out. Either option would require 72 hours of notice to the other party.
Should these workers end up on strike, they would be the second WestJet bargaining unit to go on strike in the last two years. Maintenance workers went on strike in June 2024.
