The Canadian Union of Public Employees reached a tentative deal with WestJet on Monday, ending a strike by 4,400 flight attendants that had cancelled hundreds of flights. The agreement still goes to a ratification vote. WestJet did not disclose the terms. The union said it would share details with members before they vote. [1]
The paper's Monday account of WestJet's strike ending on a tentative deal treated the walk-off as over. Tuesday treats the ballot as open. Business wires closed the story when the picket came down. Attendants still vote the clock.
CUPE wanted pay from check-in to clock-out, not mostly for time when the aircraft is in motion. Union president Alia Hussain said the agreement "evolves the flight credit system by recognizing more of the work cabin crew are required to perform and with general increases to compensation for that work." [1] That sentence is a wage line and a ground-time line. Ratification will decide which one members heard.
WestJet, which holds about thirty percent of Canada's domestic market, had cancelled 615 flights through August 4, Cirium said. The carrier said about 250,000 travelers lost flights on a three-day holiday weekend. [1] Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu welcomed a deal reached by the parties. Welcome is not a counted ballot.
The company had offered a 13 percent wage increase this year, then 2.5 percent a year through 2029, plus additional pay for all hours worked that it called another 12 percent. [1] Those figures are the company's last public offer, not the signed text. The signed text is what members have not yet seen in public.
Last August, Air Canada attendants struck for four days and stranded half a million passengers. The WestJet walkout is the latest North American challenge to a pay system that mostly compensates cabin crew when the wheels are off the ground. [1] Wires love an ended strike. The credit-hour fight is the part that survives the headline.
Onex-owned WestJet flies the United States, the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe as well as the Canadian domestic map. A holiday-weekend cancellation list that large is not a regional inconvenience. It is a North American disruption that happened because the credit hour finally became a picket, not a grievance footnote. [1] Passengers wanted planes. Attendants wanted the clock. The tentative deal claims to speak to both. The vote will say whether it does.
Hajdu's welcome line is what governments say when they have avoided back-to-work legislation for a day. It is not a reading of the contract. Members who spent Sunday on a line will not ratify a press release. They will ratify, or reject, the ground minutes the union says are now recognized. [1]
Cirium's 615 through August 4 is a deadline that already includes Tuesday. [1] Planes can fly again while the ballot is still sealed. That is how a carrier declares victory and a union declares process. Passengers will experience the first. Members will decide the second.
The completed record is a tentative deal, a strike that stopped, 615 cancellations, 4,400 voters, and no public contract. [1] What remains unsigned is the ratification. The next edition will owe the reader the count. This one owes the reader the hang.
-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco