Arbitrator orders 10,000 striking staff back to work after government intervenes – unconstitutionally, union says
Archived version: https://archive.is/20250818202852/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/18/air-canada-flight-attendants-strike-illegal
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Carney is such a moron. This is such a gift to MAGA wannabe Pierre Poilievre…
What? Poilievre would do the same thing, if not make it worse. Governments have been doing this exact tactic for a couple decades now and unions have had their power eroded for some time. It’s about time someone put a stick in the mud and said “Not this time!” Don’t “My guy would be better” this shit, they are all complicit and don’t delude yourself of that. Those fuckers are all on the same side, with different coloured Tshirts. They all play the game against us. And they’ve been ahead for way too long, we need to take the power back.
if it is illegal to go on strike, then this union is not a union. the power of the workers comes from the ability to withhold required manpower for operations to continue if you are treated poorly. when workers do not have this leverage, corporations will treat its employees as poorly as possible.
Are airline staff counted as critical workers? In the UK I think it’s only Police, fire and military who are banned from striking.
No. But they are using/abusing vague section in the constitution to justify this on the economic means.
The union and airline have been in negotiations for a long time, and the goverment is using the lack of agreement after so long as a factor in forcing the two parties into binding arbitration, which greatly benefits the airline.
So they’re not banned from striking, technically, but the government has measures in place to force the employees back to work. These measures have rarely been used in the past, but have been used 4 times in the past year against rail workers, port workers, postal workers, and now flight attendants.
These methods have been used more consistently in the past few decades around the globe. In the past ten years, especially since COVID, the script has flipped and the business sector is trying to squeeze every last cent of profit from every single quarter of every single market. Civilization is either about to end, or get very hard to live in. The rich are freaking out and trying to steal every penny they can get their hands on. I wonder why?
