Hours after Air Canada and the union representing 10,000 striking flight attendants resumed preliminary discussions on Monday night, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) said it has reached a tentative agreement to end a strike, reported AP on Tuesday.
The report added that Air Canada will gradually resume service from Tuesday after reaching an ‘agreement’ with flight attendants to end the strike.
Taking to Facebook, the CUPE’s Air Canada branch said, as quoted by AFP, “The Strike has ended. We have a tentative agreement we will bring forward to you. We are required to advise our membership that we must fully cooperate with resumption of operations.”
Air Canada said it would gradually resume operations and a full restoration may require a week or more.
The CUPE in its statement also stated that the new agreement will guarantee members’ pay for work performed while planes are on the ground.
What CUPE sought?
Earlier, Air Canada offered a 38% increase in total compensation for flight attendants over four years, with a 25% raise in the first year. This was deemed insufficient by CUPE.
On Saturday, the flight attendants walked off the job following contract talks with the carrier failed. They had sought pay for tasks such as boarding passengers, which are not remunerated. They are now paid for time when the plane is moving, reported the Reuters.
In the meantime, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu had urged both sides to consider government mediation and raised pressure on Air Canada. He also promised to investigate allegations of unpaid work in the airline sector.
For months, flight attendants have argued that new contracts should include pay for work done on the ground, such as boarding passengers.
As per the details, Air Canada and its low-cost affiliate Air Canada Rouge normally carry about 130,000 customers a day. The airline is also the foreign carrier with the largest number of flights to the United States.
