Air Canada plans to resume flights Monday evening as union remains on strike

Air Canada scrapped plans to resume service Sunday after the union that represents striking flight attendants said it would defy a federal government order that they return to their jobs, Report informs referring to The Globe and Mail.

Instead, the Montreal-based airline said it now plans to resume flights on Monday evening, despite executives with the Canadian Union of Public Employees insisting that they have no intention of ending the walkout, which began early Saturday, without a negotiated collective agreement.

On Sunday morning, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) directed the airline and striking flight attendants to restart service operations for all Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flights after an order from federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu.

The minister ordered the parties to resume work and extend the terms of the existing collective agreement until a new one could be determined by an arbitrator.

That order was set to take effect at 2 p.m. Sunday, but as the deadline came and went, employees assembled outside Toronto Pearson International Airport remained in place and chanted, “Don’t blame me, blame AC.”

“Our members are refusing to give in and go back to work,” said CUPE national president Mark Hancock. “At the end of the day, we’re defying the law here. The law is wrong, the government is wrong, the company is wrong, and we’re prepared to stand up for these workers as long as it takes.”

Hajdu made the order under Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which allows the minister to unilaterally take action to “secure industrial peace.”

Unlike recent instances where the federal government used the process to quickly end strike actions – including in labour disputes involving railways, ports and Canada Post – the refusal of the flight attendants’ union to abide by the current order could create a political crisis for the Liberal government by calling Ottawa’s bluff. It’s not at all clear how a labour quagmire that has left its mark on travellers across the globe will be resolved.

As for passengers whose plans have been thrown into uncertainty, the standoff between the union and Ottawa has only worsened their late-summer travel nightmare.

Passengers around the world were left scrambling to find flights as the fate of the job action changed throughout the weekend. Roughly 500,000 passengers had their plans disrupted by the shutdown as of Sunday evening, and they rushed to snap up a dwindling number of alternative flights on other airlines at escalating prices, with no clarity about when Air Canada will start up again.

The federal government struggled to come up with a response to the union’s actions Sunday.