NEW UPDATE: Is This The Solution?

I continue to be befuddled by the fact that airlines can mandate unpaid work for its flight attendants. A check of the Canadian Labour Code shed no light, as it would seem the only ones excluded from the payment are interns, who are not considered employees under the code.

The answer would seem to be to legislate whatever changes are necessary to eliminate this gross inequity. And if you clicked on the link in my previous post, you will know that David Climenhaga is advocating such. And given the attendants' adamant refusal to go back to work, despite a Canadian Industrial Relations Board order to do so, immediate action is required.

Let's be honest here. The Carney-led Liberal government has no one but itself to blame for the imbroglio. In a CBC report dated August 13, before the strike, 

flight attendants from a number of carriers have been calling on the federal government to make changes to the Canada Labour Code to address unpaid work.

"It's not a huge ask, really. All people are asking for is to be paid for their time on the job," CUPE spokesperson Hugh Pouliot told CBC News.

"It's a very problematic situation, not just for Air Canada flight attendants, but flight attendants across the board."

And I suspect that last sentence represents one of the sticking points for the government. As I wrote in the past many times, under Justin' Trudeau's leadership, there was nary a corporate entity the Liberals didn't love. If the same holds true of its current leadership, they will be loathe to do what must be done to end the dispute: promise to pass legislation as soon as Parliament resumes that will rectify the egregious exploitation of labour currently practised by all Canadian airlines, i.e., corporate entities, and make it retroactive to the time they return to work. Such a good-faith gesture, I think, would be well-received by the union, the CUPE leadership and, most importantly, the Canadian public, which strongly supports the attendants' cause. 

For their part, a majority of Canadians are calling on the airline to pay up before the planes tilt up and compensate service crew for the full breadth of their flight duties.

We also have to remember something.

Both the Conservatives and NDP introduced bills last parliamentary session that would have changed the Labour Code to ensure flight attendants are paid for pre- and post-flight duties. But both bills died when the House was dissolved earlier this year.

 Pouliot said it's encouraging to see opposition parties supporting the changes, but said it's "tragic and confounding" that the Liberals haven't backed the move.

"I think you would be looking at a fundamentally different situation at Air Canada right now if the Liberals — a year and a half ago — had decided to play ball with the other parties," he said.

However, there is evidence to suggest the government isn't that keen on ending airlines' modern slave practices. Again, before the strike actually began, 

When asked by CBC News, a spokesperson from Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu's office didn't comment on whether the Liberals would support changes to the Labour Code to address flight attendants' concerns. But they encouraged Air Canada and CUPE to reach an agreement.

The damage to the government's reputation cannot be minimized, especially given that the other parties see the present situation as iniquitous. 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Conservative labour critic Kyle Seeback wrote a letter to Hajdu last week calling for the Liberals to make the Labour Code changes.

"No other federally regulated worker would accept being on the job without being paid and neither should flight attendants. It's time to end this outdated and unfair practice," their letter reads.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner reiterated her party's stance.

"As somebody who is a frequent flyer, I think they should be paid for [pre- and post-flight duties]," Rempel Garner told reporters on Parliament Hill.

"I hope that the union and management can come to an agreement on this, but certainly the principles that were contained in that bill last year are things we stand behind as a party."

Unless the Liberal government wants to continue to be schooled by the Conservatives and condemned by both the air attendants and the flying public, they must act with dispatch. 

UDATE: Is this the amateur hour? Is this really the best the Liberals can do here? Is it an admission of gross ministerial incompetence? Was Hadju absent from the last session of Parliament when two parties introduced bills to change the Labour Code? Or is it just another example of the contempt government has for the people it 'serves'?

 

Patti Hadju is planning to investigate allegations of unpaid work? Lord, save us from these duplicitous, benighted fools!

LATEST UPDATE: It appears, after negotiating throughout the night, that a tentative deal has been struck.

CUPE, which represents more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, said that after nine hours of talks with the assistance of the chief mediator appointed by the federal government, the deal struck will be presented to its membership, who will have an opportunity to ratify it.

Among the sticking points for the union was the issue of pay for work performed while planes are on the ground. While not elaborating on the issue, the union said in a statement provided to CBC News that "unpaid work is over." 

 

We Condemn Slavery, But Also Kind Of Like It

No person in his or her right mind would favour slavery. Other than white supremacists and Christian nationalists (neither of who meet the criterion of the first sentence), no one sees anything benign about exploiting people's labour and paying them little to nothing in return.

Yet many also kind of like it. Consider how we so readily will summon Doordash, UberEats, etc., likely with the full knowledge that the couriers of such are living on subsistence wages. Of course, that is not really slavery, since some remuneration is granted, however paltry.

There is, however, one field of endeavour that comes pretty close to meeting the definition of slavery. Who is being held in bondage? Air flight attendants.

On my last flight, there was a 3:40 delay taking off. Despite my efforts, thanks to an Air Passenger Bill of Rights as porous as Swiss cheese, we received no compensation. The true victims of this delay, however, were the Air Canada flight attendants. During this protracted delay, they had to deal with cranky passengers and try to meet their needs, all while receiving absolutely no compensation. As you probably know by now, attendants are paid only for their time in the air. Passenger seating, safety demonstrations, etc, are duties conducted gratis.

And it is this iniquitous inequity the Air Canada attendants, represented by, CUPE, are prepared to strike over.

Air Canada says it will begin cancelling flights on Thursday ahead of a potential strike that could see more than 10,000 flight attendants walk off the job this weekend.

The country's largest airline said the gradual suspension of flights — which would see more cancellations on Friday, before a complete cessation of flying by Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge by the weekend — would allow for an orderly shutdown.

About 130,000 customers a day could be affected by a disruption, according to Air Canada.

Air Canada, like many other major airlines, doesn't currently compensate its flight attendants for the work they do before boarding and after deplaning, according to CUPE. Ground tasks include things like safety protocols and assisting passengers.

The starting salary for the attendants could most charitably described as abysmal, and their paid work, on average, amounts to 75-80 hours per month.

According to the union, entry level pay for a flight attendant is about $1,950 a month.

And the 'free labour they provide is extensive: 

They are not reimbursed for assisting people who have mobility problems, running the boarding process, helping with deplaning, or even pre-flight safety checks, work the union estimates comes out to an average of 35 hours a week for which the average flight attendants is not paid.

Now much is being made about how the carrier has requested arbitration which the union refused. As well, they are being offered a 38% increase over four years, which is misleading, as that figure includes improvements to pensions and benefits. The real sticking point in all of this, however, is the issue of unpaid work, for which the carrier has offered an anemic response:

The carrier has proposed paying flight attendants 50 per cent of their wage for work done on the ground, but the union is asking for 100 per cent.

"Air Canada is not an anomaly in this, but coming out of a 10-year deal, this is something that we're trying to correct," said [Wesley] Lesosky [president of the Air Canada component of CUPE], adding there's been a "big push globally" for this kind of compensation to become the standard.

The literalist may say there is no slavery here, since all cabin attendants are there by choice. That's one way to look at it. But on the other hand, one could say that about many workplaces where people toil but have little influence over their conditions. For the sake of survival, they labour there. After all, almost everyone needs to work. If we are lucky, we land in a congenial company, but that is not the case for many. 

Is it really such a revolutionary thing to suggest all, including cabin attendants, are entitled to both fairness and dignity in their place of work?

It Never Really Ended

If we are brutally honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that slavery never really ended. To be sure, in the United States, Black people were released from official bondage with Emancipation, and countries today have no official slavery provisions. Nonetheless, it should be clear to all with critical faculties that the exploitation of our fellow humans has never ended. 

One of enslavement's contemporary forms is what we might call wage slavery, where workers who are responsible for some pretty hefty corporate profits are given, in their view, mere orts from the table for their labour. And one group is saying they want not crumbs. but an actual meal at the table.

As the strike by Metro grocery workers continued for a second day, experts said the job action is part of a larger trend of lower-wage earners pushing back against employers for better pay in industries that have in recent years seen massive gains in profits.

“This is the revenge of the wage earner,” David Macdonald, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told the Star on Sunday. “The first couple years of big increases in prices flowed into corporate profits, and workers were behind the 8-ball over that entire period.

Given record profits and soaring food costs, the workers' argument is hard to refute.

“This is the revenge of the wage earner,” David Macdonald, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told the Star on Sunday. “The first couple years of big increases in prices flowed into corporate profits, and workers were behind the 8-ball over that entire period.

In the second quarter of this year, Metro earned $218.8 million, a 10 per cent rise from the same period a year prior. Metro also saw its sales grow to $4.55 billion in the quarter, a 6.6 per cent rise year over year.

Such profits make it hard for companies to plead poverty, and with the common perception from the public that they are getting gouged each time they enter a grocery store, sympathy for the worker should be high. Indeed, the striking Metro workers are acting on behalf of the entire food industry.

Metro is the first major grocery retailer to negotiate with Unifor during this bargaining cycle, setting a benchmark for other upcoming negotiations.

Those negotiations, conducted by Unifor, will be coming at a furious pace, with Sobey's, No Frills and others imminent. 

Union leadership identified six core priorities for the upcoming cycle of negotiations, including significant pay improvements that reflect recent record-profits, greater access to health benefits, the elimination of pay disparities between workers, more full-time jobs and job protections for workers affected by tech change, among others.

Unless we live entirely selfish and blinkered lives, it is hard to imagine anyone, other than the corporate entities, taking exception to such expectations.

UPDATED: Time For A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Only the supremely naive would think that the extollment of athleticism is a central operating principle in professional sports. While at one time there might have been some purity to the contests, today it is all about making money, often obscene amounts, for the owners and agents of these present-day gladiators, or, as some have called them, slaves, albeit well-compensated ones.

Slaves, of course, are regarded as property, and one only has to look at the more violent sports to see that the analogy holds true. Football, despite the increasingly well-known risks of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) caused by repeated concussions, continues apace, as do hockey, boxing and a myriad of other sports that leave a legacy of early dementia, violent behaviour, and even suicide.

None of these facts will change the nature or the practice of these sports. Business is business, violence is violence, and fans would not have it any other way.

But in light of the great physical and mental consequences of such contests, it occurs to me that players can make their shortened lives and intellectual diminishment mean something. They can all take a stand by taking a knee. They can all be Colin Kaepernick and much, much more.

There are a few hopeful signs on the horizon. A few weeks ago, in a preseason game between the Cleveland Browns and the New York Giants, a white player, for the first time, took a knee.

As the anthem sounded, several Browns players knelt in what they later said was prayer. Among them was Seth DeValve, who is white and whose wife is African-American.

"I wanted to support my African-American teammates today who wanted to take a knee," he said in a post-game interview. "We wanted to draw attention to the fact that there's things in this country that still need to change."

#Browns TE Seth DeValve explains why he participated in the prayer during the anthem pic.twitter.com/T8PhmsDKcL

— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) August 22, 2017

Up to this point, taking the knee has been an act, not to disrespect the American anthem, but to protest the racism Blacks regularly experience at the hands of the authorities. Now, in light of Donald Trump's absolutely disgraceful remarks about sports figures, both at his Huntsville cult-gathering, and his childish and ongoing tweets afterwards, I believe the gesture needs to spread to all altheles and take on new meaning as a protest against the toddler in the White House whose only mission seems to be to spread division and discord.

And there are some hopeful signs in that more and more athletes are starting to speak out. Lebron James, in response to Trumpian tweets about NBA champion Stephen Curry's refusal to join his team at the White House, had this to say in a tweet directed at the Trump:

U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!

James then explained why he wrote it:

"It’s not about dividing. We as American people need to come together even stronger.” — @KingJames responds to @realDonaldTrump’s comments. pic.twitter.com/UHpzXpb42K

— UNINTERRUPTED (@uninterrupted) September 23, 2017

Sports have often been looked upon as helping to unite countries. The fact that little unity exists in the United States is ample testament to the simple-mindedness of that idea. But, I believe there is a window of opportunity here in which athleticism can transcend itself.

What I have written here is probably mere wishful thinking and will likely, for various reasons, never have a hope in hell of being realized. Nonetheless, can you imagine the effect that such demonstrations of cross-cultural and cross-racial solidarity might have? At the very least, it could provoke some much-needed discussion about the state of America, and at the most, it could help increasing numbers understand that the madman they put in the White House has no place there.

This is a cost-benefit analysis surely worth undertaking.

UPDATE: Bravo, Steve Kerr. The Golden State Warriors' coach had some harsh words for Donald Trump yesterday:

“The idea of civil discourse with a guy who is tweeting and demeaning people and saying the things he’s saying is sort of far-fetched,” Kerr stated. “Can you picture us really having a civil discourse with him?”

“How about the irony of, ‘Free speech is fine if you’re a neo-Nazi chanting hate slogans, but free speech is not allowed to kneel in protest?'” Kerr added. “No matter how many times a football player says, ‘I honor our military, but I’m protesting police brutality and racial inequality,’ it doesn’t matter. Nationalists are saying, ‘You’re disrespecting our flag.’ Well, you know what else is disrespectful to our flag? Racism. And one’s way worse than the other.”