The Canadian Union of Public Employees reached a tentative wage deal with WestJet on Monday for 4,400 flight attendants and ended a strike that had cancelled hundreds of flights. [1] WestJet did not publish the terms. The union said it would share details with members before a ratification vote. [1] Thursday did not produce that vote.
The paper's Wednesday major said the ratification vote was still pending. Thursday's completed record is the same unpaid ground: a tentative text, no public ballot result, no published pay table. Business desks closed the strike on Monday. The ballot is still the story.
CUPE president Alia Hussain said the agreement evolves the flight-credit system by recognizing more of the work cabin crew must perform and by raising compensation for that work. [1] Attendants had struck Sunday after talks failed. They wanted pay from check-in to clock-out, not mostly for time when the aircraft is moving. [1] That is the North American cabin-crew fight Air Canada's four-day strike last August already advertised.
WestJet, about 30 percent of Canada's domestic market and majority-owned by Onex, had offered a 13 percent wage increase this year, 2.5 percent a year through 2029, and extra pay for all hours worked equal to another 12 percent. [1] Cirium counted 615 cancellations through August 4. The airline 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. [1]
A reader who only watches CNBC's strike-over headline will think the gate is staffed. A reader who only watches crew channels will know the credit system is still a vote. Thursday did not count that vote. It left the tentative page unsigned by the people who have to fly it.
Flight credit is the industry's polite name for unpaid boarding, delays, and sitting at the gate. Hussain said the tentative text recognizes more of that work. [1] She did not publish the minutes. WestJet did not publish the dollars. A ratification vote without a public table is how airlines close a news cycle and leave the argument in a union hall.
Air Canada's strike last August stranded about half a million people. [1] WestJet's 615 cancellations and 250,000 disrupted travelers are the Calgary version on a holiday weekend. Hajdu's welcome is the government's version. None of those sentences is a counted ballot.
Onex can live with a tentative page. Cabin crew live with the credit system every pairing. [1] If members reject the text, the strike is not over. If they accept it, the ticker was only early, not wrong. Thursday is still the day after the ticker and before the hall. The paper will keep the vote pending until someone counts it.
Encore still flew through the mainline stoppage in earlier files. That is a different certificate and a different crew. This slot is the 4,400 and the credit fight they have not yet ratified. [1] Business copy that buried the ballot under "strike ends" did the airline's work. The unfinished work is the vote.
Canada's second-largest carrier flies the U.S., the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe. [1] A holiday-weekend hole of a quarter million people is how a credit fight becomes a national story. A tentative page without a counted hall is how it becomes a Thursday hold. The paper will not invent a yes. It will not invent a no. It will keep the 4,400 unpaid on the ground until they vote.
-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco