Isaac Phan Nay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

On Tuesday morning, interim NDP leader Don Davies stood up in the House of Commons to deliver on a party promise — introducing legislation that would end unpaid work by flight attendants.

According to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE, North American flight attendants are usually paid only while in the air. The unpaid-work issue was at the heart of a three-day strike this summer that disrupted Canadian air travel.

The NDP private member’s bill would require airlines to pay flight attendants for all hours worked before and after takeoff, like safety checks and passenger boarding — tasks that are often called “ground work.”

At a press conference later that morning, Davies urged members across the aisle to support the bill.

“No one in Canada should be expected to work for free,” he told reporters. “This legislation is about respect. It’s about recognizing the professionalism and dedication of flight attendants and ensuring that they’re compensated fairly.”

Three months ago, Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants walked off the job over wages and unpaid work, grounding more than 500,000 passengers in a tense three-day strike.

In response, federal Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to send Air Canada and the flight attendants’ union to binding arbitration.

The board ruled the flight attendant strike illegal — but the union defied that ruling and stayed on the picket line until Air Canada came back to the table with an offer that addressed unpaid ground work.

The bill to address ground work for all airline cabin crew is in for a long fight ahead. Last year, similar legislation died out quickly. Meanwhile, briefing notes for Hajdu obtained by The Tyee suggest Ottawa is skeptical of CUPE’s unpaid-work allegations and has been preparing for such a bill.

Stephanie Ross, a labour studies professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said that while she suspects there would be large public support for the bill, it’s hard to say whether the legislation will pass.

“It’s an initiative that I think most Canadians would find reasonable, given that, generally speaking, we don’t expect people to work for free,” Ross said.

She said with only seven MPs, the NDP will need to get support from the Bloc Québécios — a party that is often aligned on economic and labour issues — and from either of the two big parties.

“I would be surprised if the Bloc Québécois didn’t support an initiative like this,” she said. “The question is really going to be whether or not either Liberals or Conservatives support it.”

Under the Access to Information Act, The Tyee requested all communications and briefing notes prepared for Jobs and Families Minister Hajdu about flight attendants’ unpaid work during the Air Canada strike and its aftermath.

A briefing note for Hajdu said that last year, both the NDP and the Conservative Party of Canada introduced bills — C-409 and C-425, respectively — to address unpaid work in the airline sector.

In response to the bills, the former minister of labour took the position that the government should not be commenting on provisions included in a collective agreement, and that it’s up to employers and bargaining agents to get to an agreement.

Neither bill made it past the House of Commons.

After job action over unpaid work at Air Canada this summer, the NDP vowed to re-table the legislation when Parliament resumed.

The NDP’s new bill is scheduled for further consideration at the next sitting of the House.

This year, Air Canada agreed to pay flight attendants for up to 60 minutes of work before takeoff at 50 per cent of their hourly rate during their first year, increasing incrementally to 70 per cent by the fourth year.

Air Canada joins a small list of North American airlines that pay flight attendants for some part of their ground work, including Porter Airlines and Delta.

According to CUPE, it’s industry standard not to pay for ground work. Before this round of bargaining with Air Canada, the union said each flight attendant spent up to 35 hours per month doing ground work for no pay.

But the federal government is skeptical of CUPE’s claims. The documents obtained by The Tyee included an Aug. 18 draft briefing about allegations of unpaid work by flight attendants.

Under a subheading titled “Government’s Position,” the note said it’s up to the unions and employers to determine when work is to be paid. It also suggested claims of unpaid work were yet unproven.

“No evidence has been provided to support the allegation, and, to date, the labour program has not received a complaint related to this matter,” the note said.

In September, Ottawa launched a probe into unpaid work at airlines.

Hajdu’s briefing note said the objectives of the consultation would be to inform possible policy actions and “help inform a potential government response should the NDP introduce a [bill] that bans unpaid work for flight attendants.”

The probe includes six roundtable discussions with employers, unions and other stakeholders this month. The Labour Program plans to publish a “What We Heard” report in December or January.

“Nobody should work for free in this country,” Hajdu’s press secretary wrote in an email to The Tyee in response to a request for comment for this story.

“The allegations of unpaid work in the airline industry are deeply concerning — we will get to the bottom of this.”

On Tuesday, Davies told reporters Ottawa doesn’t need to investigate the flight attendants’ assertion of unpaid work.

“There is no need for a probe into unpaid work,” Davies said. “It’s well known in the industry, and it is disingenuous of Minister Hajdu to indicate to the public that there’s something to be discovered here.”

Who’s responsible for ensuring workers are fairly paid?

Natasha Stea, president of CUPE Local 4091 in Montreal, has been representing Air Canada flight attendants in the consultations. She said that so far, government representatives have been dismissive at the table.

“Very vague, very superficial, would be a way to describe the questions,” she said. “It’s very easy to show — we have a check-in and a check-out time every day. I could bring my paycheque and show all the time that is missing.”

Stea added it shouldn’t be up to the union to ensure airlines are paying employees for all their time worked.

“Workers should not have to negotiate the right to be paid while they’re at work,” Stea said. “It should be the minimum standard and the law of the land.”

McMaster University’s Ross said it’s not yet clear whether the federal Liberals or Conservatives will support the new bill.

But Ross said it would be “disingenuous” for the government to double down on its stance from last year that it’s up to employers and unions to address unpaid work after enacting a piece of the labour code that would ultimately send striking employees back to work.

“The way that the government intervened kicked the legs out from under the union,” she said.

“It’s kind of two-faced for the government to say, ‘This is something for collective bargaining,’ and then prevent that very process from functioning.”

Ross said it is still industry standard not to pay flight attendants for ground work — meaning that to cut costs and stay competitive, airlines are incentivized to keep that work unpaid.

She said requiring the whole sector to pay for ground work would eliminate that competition and ensure airlines pay employees for all their work across the board.

“This is exactly the kind of situation where the government has an important role to play in legislating the minimum standards,” Ross said.

“Basic fundamental norms should not be dependent on the bargaining power of a particular group of workers; that should be something that is set in regulation.”

Learn more about our News Monitoring here.

---