Strike by 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants declared illegal

TORONTO (AP) — The Canada Industrial Relations Board declared a strike by 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants illegal Monday and ordered them back on the job after they ignored an earlier order to return to work and submit to arbitration.

The strike at Canada’s largest airline entered its third day on Monday and is affecting about 130,000 vacationers per day during the height summer season journey season, and the 2 sides stay far aside on pay and other points. Air Canada suspended plans to restart operations Sunday after the union defied an earlier return-to-work order.

“The members of the union’s bargaining unit are directed to resume the performance of their duties immediately and to refrain from engaging in unlawful strike activities,” the Canada Industrial Relations Board board, or CIRB, said in a written choice.

The board, an impartial administrative tribunal that interprets and applies Canada’s labor legal guidelines, said the union wants to present written discover to all of its members by midday Monday that they must resume their duties.

It was not immediately clear what recourse the board or the federal government has if the union continues to refuse.

“We are in a situation where literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians and visitors to our country are being disrupted by this action,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said. “I urge both parties to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

Carney said his jobs minister would have more to say later. Carney said it was disappointing that talks haven’t led to a deal, and added that it’s important that flight attendants are compensated pretty at all occasions.

The labor board beforehand ordered airline employees back to work by 2 p.m. Sunday and for the union to enter arbitration, after the federal government intervened. Air Canada then said it deliberate to resume flights Sunday night. But when the employees refused, the airline said it could resume flights Monday night instead. However, there was no signal that the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE, would relent.

Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.

CUPE national President Mark Hancock on Sunday had ripped up a copy of the initial back-to-work order outdoors Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, and said members would not go back to work this week, to the cheers of picketing flight attendants.

Flight attendants walked off the job around 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday, after turning down the airline’s request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which permits a third-party mediator to resolve the phrases of a new contract.

Air Canada and CUPE have been in contract talks for about eight months, but stay far aside on the issue of pay and the unpaid work that flight attendants do when planes aren’t in the air.

The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in whole compensation, including advantages and pensions, over 4 years, that it said “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada.”

But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first 12 months didn’t go far enough because of inflation.

Passengers whose flights are impacted can be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s web site or cell app, according to Air Canada.

Last 12 months, the federal government pressured the nation’s two major railroads into arbitration with their labor union during a work stoppage. The union for the rail staff is suing, arguing the federal government is eradicating a union’s leverage in negotiations.