Editorial:
Not all heroes wear capes
by Brandon Mayer
Have you heard that flight attendants with Air Canada may soon be in a legal strike position? I certainly have, but for good reason – I have flights booked with them 4 days after the first day they could go on strike! We’ve been hearing a lot about strikes lately, specifically regarding Canada Post. I haven’t been particularly sympathetic regarding the two Canada Post disputes – a strike last fall that was ultimately ended by the government, and a labour dispute that is still ongoing.
In my view, strikes happen for one of two reasons: necessity, or greed. I’m not much of a black and white thinker, but here, I’ll make an exception. The Canada Post job action absolutely falls into the “greed” category. These workers are paid a fair market value for their work. They have working conditions that employees in some other industries could only dream of. They have been offered concessions, raises, even hefty signing bonuses, but it’s not enough. They know that many individuals and businesses rely on the postal service, so if they hold out for strike action, they may get even more. The problem is, Canada Post simply can’t afford it. The crown corporation is struggling financially, and this frequent, drawn-out job action only pushes existing customers to switch permanently to courier services that are more reliable.
I have had nothing but amazing experiences with the post office workers in both of the local post offices I do business with. Unions are powerful and relentless organizations, and their statements and actions are not always reflective of the workers on the ground. But at the end of the day, it’s the workers who will need to collectively tell the union “this is enough, the offers are fair, back off” before continuous job action leads to price increases and poor customer relations that ultimately cut down on business and lead to layoffs. At a certain point, fighting too hard will lead to losses, not gains. Unions seem oblivious to this when they enter “greed” mode.
In stark contrast, a union fight that was a definite “necessity” was the CUPE education workers strike in November of 2022. Full disclosure: I am a member of that union, but the incredible wage gap between teachers and other educators was worth fighting against, not just on our own behalf, but on behalf of anyone with children in the education system. “Just quit if you don’t like your job” was a very dangerous mantra from some who didn’t like the job action. At the time, the only thing keeping full time educators from leaving for better pay when making an average of $39,000 per year in this economy, was a passion for their work. And yet many amazing educators I knew still couldn’t do it – their bills weren’t being paid.
Still to this day, there are factories that pay more for general labour than what many CUPE educators make. “Just quit your job” was the sound of many parents not caring who their child spends their day with, devaluing the work and being fine with anyone taking on the role for a crap wage. It’s also backwards thinking – if you’re mad about school closures due to a strike, what do you think will happen when the workers outright quit? The fact that CUPE educators really were leaving their jobs because they couldn’t afford basic necessities despite being educated and experienced is the mark of a “necessity strike”. I haven’t heard of any Canada Post workers leaving their jobs in search of better employment lately.
This brings us to Air Canada. I “research as I go” when writing and admit that I had quite the rant prepared against the company and in favour of the union before properly researching both sides. One article headline really bothered me, reading “Air Canada offers 32.5% increase for flight attendants in contract talks: Source says airline also agreed to pay workers for some of the time they spend on the ground”.
My first, heavily sarcastic thought was “not all heroes wear capes”. Some of the time? In 2025, we’re going to pay workers for “some” of the time they spend completing mandatory employment duties. Can women sometimes wear pants too?
However, Air Canada – despite having a reputation for poor customer service and not the best treatment of its workers – has been transparent about the compensation currently offered to flight attendants. Those with 10 years experience, working the same job throughout the last decade with no promotions, currently earn $63.07 per hour. Of course, entry level workers make less, but 10 years is not a long climb on an employee ladder, and $63.07 hourly is nothing to sneeze at. Air Canada, of course, points out that “unpaid” time on the ground is standard in the industry, and is subsumed under the generous pay rate.
I believed I would be writing about this issue with teeth bared fighting for the “little guy”, but now I am on the fence. Raises for flight attendants have not kept up with inflation, so a raise is in order, but maybe it’s best to apply an annual salary for flight attendants with flexible work hours, rather than an hourly wage that excludes mandatory work hours. Optics are everything.
In the meantime, I will continue Google searching “Air Canada strike” 14 times per day from now until the labour dispute is settled. A shout out to Visa for financing refundable backup airline tickets. I hope, in the spirit of fair labour relations, that I’ll never have to use them.