TORONTO – Air Canada pilots have voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike mandate, putting them in a position to walk off the job as early as Sept. 17.
The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents more than 5,400 aviators at the country’s largest carrier, said the vote passed with 98 per cent support on Thursday.
The employees have been negotiating with Air Canada since June 2023, with ongoing talks in Toronto hotels overseen by a federal conciliator.
That process is slated to wrap up this Monday, followed by a 21-day cooling-off period — leaving Sept. 17 as the soonest possible strike date.
Charlene Hudy, head of the union’s Air Canada contingent, said the vote sends “a clear message to management” that pilots are willing to take job action to secure a better deal.
“It’s a stale, outdated contract,” she said in a phone interview. “There are elements of our collective agreement right now that stem back to just post-bankruptcy.”
The airline filed for bankruptcy protection in 2003.
Hudy said the two sides have found consensus in some areas, but that wages and some aspects of scheduling remain sticking points.
Following new contracts between the four biggest U.S. airlines and their pilots over the past 18 months, some flight crews earn roughly double what their counterparts at Air Canada make, she said, pointing to United Airlines in particular.
“We all fly passengers under the Star Alliance. So we’re flying the same passengers in the same airspace on some of the very same routes, and those pilots are being compensated dramatically more than us,” Hudy said.
Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Air Canada’s chief human resources officer, said the parties had reached agreement on “many, many articles” of the collective agreement.
She noted the labour stability that marked the decade covered by the now-expired contract.
“But of course, with a 10-year-deal, it creates a bit of pent-up demand. So it’s time to refresh that agreement,” she said in a video posted to Air Canada’s website Thursday.
Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau told analysts earlier this month that both sides were in agreement on several points and that he hopes to reach a deal in the coming weeks.
Charlene Hudy, chair of the Air Canada ALPA Master Executive Council, said: “Our goal is to avoid a strike, and our focus remains on modernizing our contract for Air Canada pilots.
“However, management continues to force us closer to a strike position by not listening to our needs at the negotiating table regarding fair compensation, respectable retirement benefits, and quality-of-life improvements.”
ALPA’s Air Canada department said it was particularly confident in its ability to take strike action if needed after approval from ALPA’s executive committee of a $5m grant from the union’s war chest.
ALPA negotiators have been looking to bring pilots’ salaries up to the same standard as their US counterparts, with the most recent contract negotiated with Air Canada in 2014 putting the airline’s pilots on half the pay of their peers, according to the union.
Air Canada defended the length of negotiations as an expected part of “refreshing” a 10-year-old contract deal and said the vote for strike action was a normal part of negotiations.
Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, chief human resources officer and public affairs at Air Canada, said: “We’re still actively at the table working very collaboratively with our pilot union to reach, what we hope will be, a very good deal at the table for all parties concerned.
“Our goal is to reach that deal at the table in the next few weeks.”
While the strike vote is not binding, it means Canada’s aviation sector joins its maritime and rail industries under threat of industrial action in the coming months.
Talks between the country’s two largest rail freight providers and the Teamsters union fell through earlier this month and the Canadian government has now stepped in to ease the dispute.
Hundreds of dockworkers in British Columbia are also set to vote on strike action in the coming days and could cause mass shipping delays if negotiations break down for the second time in just over a year.