After an heroic strike which defeated a government back-to-work order, flight attendants with Air Canada have voted a resounding 99.1 per cent against the tentative agreement. This shows how completely out of touch the union leaders are who endorsed the deal. But the full picture is even more damning: union leaders colluded with the bosses to deprive the workers of any real say.
Workers given no say
The Air Canada flight attendants strike was truly historic. They defied a back-to-work order from the federal government and won. This proved that when the workers move, power lies not in a government order, but on the picket lines. The picket lines were vibrant, support from the entire labour movement was rock solid, and the polls showed that the vast majority of the Canadian population was behind the flight attendants.
After defying the government, on Tuesday, August 19th the union announced that they had wrested serious concessions from Air Canada, claiming that “unpaid work is over.” On this basis, they called off the strike and ordered their members back to work.
But at a Zoom meeting reporting the details to their members, union leaders gave flight attendants the truth: that unpaid work was not over and the wage concessions would maintain wages below minimum wage. To add insult to injury, the workers would only be allowed to vote on the wages. And even if they voted the contract down, everything apart from the wages would be ratified anyway.
When workers asked if they would go back on strike if they voted no, the leadership stated categorically that they would not be going back on strike – and that all that would happen is that wages would be determined by an arbitrator appointed by the pro-corporate mediator, William Kaplan.
In a post on the union’s Facebook page, the leadership explained the options facing the workers as:
“1.) Ratify the deal as presented, including all terms and wages, including a promissory letter that “service fees will continue to be waived for all Cabin personnel pass travel until expiry of the collective agreement”.
Or
2.) Turn down the deal. All terms will be protected, and the issue of wages will move forward to arbitration.”
Responding to this, one flight attendant explained:
“Unfortunately, a lot of members feel the union took their right to vote on their contract away. Disguising the fact that the only thing members now get to vote on is wage — behind the guise of locked in gains is troubling. We fought hard, and defied government order to return to work, just to get the most minimal say in what’s in our contract. A lot of us would have rather this gone to arbitration before the union deciding for the over 10,500 that this contract was adequate enough to present to us, and adequate enough to take the over 10,500 members’ voices away by stripping them of the right to vote on a whole contract- not just wage.
Proud of the union for all the work they did during the strike, but will be brutally honest when I say — I’m really disappointed in what you brought forward to us in the form of contract and how the only say we get now is our wage.
Feels like our voice has been taken, again.”
Another flight attendant stated:
“Wish I could vote NO to the ENTIRE contract. … that said, I understand we would not have gotten anything better in arbitration…BUT, I do wish CUPE National had held the line … and not caved to the strong arming (as they said they would when Mark ripped up the mandate). Had we held strong… with the support of CUPE National, and showed the country and the government and the company we wouldn’t be bullied into taking a less than fair contact… we could have possibly prevailed. I guess we will never know. I feel railroaded and betrayed on so many levels.”
And then, on the day the rejection of the deal was announced, a press release from Air Canada confirmed that the union leadership had colluded with the bosses to take away all the rights of their own members:
“Air Canada and CUPE contemplated this potential outcome and mutually agreed that if the tentative agreement was not ratified, the wage portion would be referred to mediation and, if no agreement was reached at that stage, to arbitration. The parties also agreed that no labour disruption could be initiated, and therefore there will be no strike or lock-out, and flights will continue to operate.”
What happened can be summed up thus:
1) the government imposes a back-to-work order to break the strike and force the union into binding arbitration,
2) the workers valiantly defy the order and go on an illegal strike to prevent their rights being taken away,
3) the union leadership signs a disappointing deal, the workers are not allowed to vote on it, no strike is allowed, and the wages portion is sent into… binding arbitration!
While CUPE said they “reclaimed our voice and our power,” and “secured a tentative agreement that our members can vote on,” real decision making power was completely taken away from the flight attendants. The vote was therefore almost meaningless.
The victorious defiance of the back-to-work order was an historic step forward and sets an important precedent. But the point of defending the right to strike is to use that right to win a better deal. In these conditions, with a determined strike bolstered by the defeat of the back-to-work order and with the support from the rest of the labour movement and wider society, it was totally possible to end unpaid work entirely and win significantly higher wages.
This would have a reverberating effect throughout the labour movement and set the tone for struggles to come. Unfortunately, the leaders betrayed this historic movement and stifled rank-and-file democracy in the process.
This is the situation that led to this historic no vote. This vote was a complete rejection of the conduct of the leadership and represents a yearning for a genuinely militant and democratic trade union leadership.
Sitting on a volcano
This strike contains important lessons for the labour movement as a whole.
2023 saw 6.6 million days lost to strike activity, the most since 1986. While 2024 saw this number decrease to around 1.1 million, this was only due to Trudeau’s repeated use of section 107 of the labour code, which either prevented or prematurely ended strikes by seven major unions.
On top of this, Carney is promising 15 per cent cuts across the board and is now openly admitting the government will be implementing “austerity.” As the crisis worsens, the Liberals are continually forced to shed their slim veneer of class compromise. We must prepare for class war.
But the current leadership of the labour movement is woefully unprepared to lead this struggle. Having been brought up in the previous period of class conciliation with low levels of strike activity, they are more accustomed to sitting at a bargaining table than leading a mass struggle.
Class anger in society is welling up. Unprecedentedly high strike votes like that of the Air Canada flight attendants (99.7 per cent) are commonplace, as workers look for a way to fight back against declining living conditions which have become endemic under capitalism in crisis.
The union leaders in Canada are sitting on a volcano of class anger, ready to erupt. But this anger is running square into a blockage at the top of the volcano in the form of the trade union bureaucrats who are unable or unwilling to lead the struggle forward.
In fact, this is not the first time in recent years that workers in Canada have voted against a deal recommended by their leaders. In 2023 workers at Metro stores in Ontario voted down a deal recommended by their leaders. Windsor salt workers also voted down a poor deal. Vancouver port workers voted down bad deals – twice. Then at the beginning of 2024, Air Transat flight attendants voted down a proposed deal with a record 98.1 per cent rejection. Each time, workers refused to accept the deal their own leadership was endorsing.
Low approval votes have also become commonplace as workers hold their noses and vote for bad contracts. The public sector workers organized in the BCGEU approved their sellout contract in 2022 at just 53.4 per cent.The FAE (teachers union in Quebec) accepted their new contract by the narrowest of margins at 50.48 per cent in 2024. Add to this the FIQ (Quebec nurses) who voted just 66 per cent for a rotten deal.
With the strike of the Air Canada flight attendants, we see that the anger and militancy of the members was so overwhelming that it pushed the leaders to defy section 107. This was an historic moment, similar to the historic defiance carried out by the Ontario Education workers in 2022 against Doug Ford’s use of the not-withstanding clause to strip the union of its rights.
Revolutionary leadership needed!
As genuine Marxists have explained, workers want to fight – and they have the power to do so. The missing factor is leaders who have faith in the workers, and who can provide them with a bold and uncompromising leadership to take the struggle to a victorious conclusion.
We are at the beginning of a renewal of the Canadian labour movement. Workers are starting to move, and they are testing their leaders. Those leaders who are unable to reflect the anger of the masses and provide them with the ideas and leadership necessary to beat back the attacks of the bosses, and to guarantee that the workers can make ends meet, will inevitably be tossed aside. The old conservative layer, accustomed to class collaboration, will be replaced with those ready for the class struggle.
Revolutionary Communists are unabashedly on the side of the 99.1 per cent of Air Canada flight attendants who are upset at this deal. We are unreservedly on the side of millions of workers looking for a way forward.
We aim to accelerate this renewal and reorientation of the movement from one of class collaboration to one of class struggle.
This is the only way forward if we are to fight for decent living conditions for all workers, and fight back and win against the capitalist system that is the root of all of these problems.
