Ottawa faces increased pressure to avert Air Canada pilot strike or lockout

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The federal government faces mounting pressure to avert a strike or lockout at Air Canada AC-T, but Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon will not say whether he would intervene to end any potential stoppage.

Canada’s largest business lobby group on Wednesday issued an open letter to Mr. MacKinnon, urging him to prevent a stoppage at the country’s largest airline that would inconvenience tens of thousands of people every day and disrupt some cargo shipments.

Air Canada and the union representing its 5,200 pilots have been in contract negotiations for more than a year, and will be in a legal strike or lockout position on Sept. 18. The airline has said it will begin cancelling flights on Friday to avoid stranding passengers, crews and planes.

The Air Line Pilots Association says it wants Air Canada’s pilots to be paid wages that are competitive with those of their U.S. peers; Air Canada says the union is asking for too much.

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The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said on Wednesday that the possibility of a stoppage is the latest in a series of labour disputes that threatens the reputation and reliability of the country’s transportation system. These stoppages include August’s shutdown of Canadian National Railway CNR-T and Canadian Pacific Kansas City CP-T railway, a strike by WestJet Airlines’ mechanics in June and last year’s strikes on the St. Lawrence Seaway and at B.C. ports.

“If Canadian businesses are unable to deliver our goods to market on time, our international partners will begin to seek permanent alternatives,” the business group said in the letter. “Should the parties not come to a negotiated agreement, the federal government must prioritize Canadians and be prepared to act in advance to prevent yet another damaging disruption by referring the matter to binding arbitration where a neutral arbitrator can resolve any outstanding issues.”

However, the government has not indicated it is prepared to step in, less than a month after ordering ends to the stoppages at the railways.

Mr. MacKinnon told reporters in Nanaimo, B.C., on Wednesday he believes Air Canada and the pilots union are making progress, unlike in the rail dispute where the government believed the parties remained far apart.

“There’s no reason for these parties not to be able to achieve a collective agreement, so I’m asking them to knuckle down and get the deal done.”

However, he conceded there are “significant issues” left to resolve in the talks being held this week in Toronto.

Mr. MacKinnon would not say what steps he will take if a strike does happen but suggested that Air Canada should not expect the government to quickly intervene with a back-to-work order, as it did with the Teamsters rail lockouts in August.

“There are significant differences between those two situations, and I’ll leave it at that,” he said.

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Despite the minister’s comments, Isabelle Dostaler, the University of Regina’s provost, whose expertise includes the aviation business, said the government would face criticism for not intervening in the Air Canada dispute after it ordered the rail companies and union back to work and imposing binding arbitration.

“After having intervened in the railway and WestJet disputes, it would be hard for this very unpopular government not to do anything,” she said. “Even more so in the case of Air Canada, a company that still, in many ways, bears the stamp of a flag carrier or Crown company.”

Tae Hoon Oum, a University of British Columbia business professor, said the shutdown of one of Canada’s two dominant airlines would create disruptions that spur the government to intervene. “Such intervention is also politically justified because Air Canada’s reputation among [the] travelling public is really bad,” Prof. Oum said.

Ian Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University, predicted the government will show its support for organized labour by allowing a strike to last for about five days. “As the howls of protest increase – day by day by day – the Trudeau government will buckle within five days and then use binding arbitration to send them back to work,” Dr. Lee said.

In 2023, Air Canada’s pilots ended their 10-year collective agreement a year early and voted to disband their own union to join ALPA, which represents 78,000 pilots at 41 U.S. and Canadian carriers. Air Canada’s pilots under the old agreement received raises of 2 per cent a year. They are now seeking pay hikes similar to those won by pilots at WestJet and U.S. airlines, who have seen their wages rise by more than 10 per cent amid a labour shortage.

Here’s a look at how other Air Canada labour disputes were resolved:

In 1998, Air Canada’s 2,100 pilots walked the picket lines for 13 days, grounding 650 daily flights and costing the company $133-million. The pilots approved a negotiated deal.

In 2012, the Conservative government of the day prevented a lockout or strike by Air Canada’s pilots with legislation that also imposed a contract if an arbitrator was unable to settle the dispute. Angry pilots called in sick in large numbers, disrupting the airline’s flight schedule. The Canadian Industrial Relations Board, an independent adjudicator, declared the job action an illegal strike.

That same year, the government took similar steps to block a strike by 8,600 Air Canada ground crew.

In 2011, then-labour minister Lisa Raitt blocked a strike by 6,800 Air Canada flight attendants and appointed an arbitrator who sided with the company, imposing an agreement already rejected by the employees.