Air Canada’s striking flight attendants are planning to defy a government order sending them back to work on Sunday, leaders said.
“We will be challenging this blatantly unconstitutional order that violates the Charter rights of 10,000 flight attendants,” the Canadian Union of Public Employees said in a statement. “We remain on strike. We demand a fair, negotiated contract and to be compensated for all hours worked.”
The flight attendants hit the picket lines at 1 a.m. Saturday, bringing Canada’s largest airline to a grinding halt. The work stoppage has left 100,000 would-be passengers stranded.
About 12 hours after the strike began, the Canadian government intervened and ordered the contract dispute into arbitration, theoretically ending the strike and sending everyone back to work. Air Canada management had asked for the arbitration order, while the union defiantly opposed it.
After that order, Air Canada said it expected to resume flights on Sunday evening. Flight attendants were supposed to report for work at 2 p.m. Sunday, just 37 hours after the strike started.
“To legislate us back to work 12 hours after we started? I’m sorry, snowstorms have shut down Air Canada for longer than we were allowed to strike,” CUPE vice president Lillian Speedie told the CBC.
More than 700 Air Canada flights have already been canceled and the airline said even a Sunday evening resumption of service would include residual delays.
The union’s top sticking point in contract negotiations has been payment for work done before planes take off and after they land. Previously, Air Canada flight attendants have only been paid for the hours their planes are in motion.
Air Canada has called the union’s demands “unsustainable” and had requested the government intervention to stop what they described as a bargaining impasse.
With News Wire Services
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