In August, some ten thousand Air Canada flight attendants, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), went on strike to demand considerable improvements to their appalling working conditions and inadequate pay. They quickly faced a back-to-work order from Mark Carney’s Liberal government but, to the amazement of their employer and its political agents, workers chose to defy this order and pressed on with their strike.
At the time of this writing, the inspiring and powerful struggle undertaken by these flight attendants has been seriously undermined by the machinations of Air Canada and the trade union leading the fight. At the bargaining table, representatives of the union and the airline quickly reached a tentative deal—one that fell far short of workers’ demands. This deal also greatly compromised the ability of the striking flight attendants to democratically decide on the viability of the offer. This dramatic confrontation offers important lessons to consider, which I will outline here.
Defiant Workers
Air Canada flight attendants have long endured major grievances. As Canada’s premier airline, it has reaped enormous profits from subjecting its employees to exploitative conditions that are severe and ongoing. For example, speaking shortly before the beginning of the strike, the twenty-four year flight attendant and president of the Air Canada unit of CUPE, Wesley Lesosky, noted that junior workers were being paid a mere $1,952 CAD a month, significantly below the federal minimum wage. He pointed out that many of the newest members of the union in Toronto and Vancouver were having to turn to food banks “as they struggle to house and feed themselves while working full time. We still have members living out of their cars at our Vancouver base.”1Mike Pearson, “Air Canada flight attendants’ union says wages below minimum. Here’s how much junior flight attendants earn,” Inside Halton, August 14, 2025, https://www.insidehalton.com/news/air-canada-strike-cupe/article_1a5208f9-5fc7-5f8c-8ec3-b7ff2a5d4742.html.
Lesosky also drew attention to the grievous issue of unpaid work that workers were often expected to perform. He explained that “flight attendants are forced to complete ground duties ranging from pre-flight safety checks to boarding, deplaning and attending to medical and safety emergencies while being paid only for time spent in the air.”2Pearson, “Air Canada flight attendants’ union says wages below minimum.”
CUPE had already been pushing this issue of unpaid labor. Through a campaign called “Unpaid Work Won’t Fly,” the union highlighted the fact that “flight attendants in Canada work, on average, 35 hours per month unpaid, while they perform critical safety-related duties.”3“Unpaid Work Won’t Fly,” Canadian Union of Public Employees, https://cupe.ca/unpaid-work-wont-fly. Facing such massive injustices, the workers were determined to secure major gains and, on that basis, delivered an overwhelming 99.7 percent strike mandate, setting the stage for the battle that ensued.4Bruce Parkinson, “What Happens Now after Air Canada’s Flight Attendants Defy Order to End Strike?” Travel Market Report, August 18, 2025, https://www.travelmarketreport.com/canada/air/articles/what-happens-now-after-air-canadas-flight-attendants-defy-order-to-end-strike.
On August 13, CUPE issued a seventy-two hour strike notice, leaving Air Canada facing the prospect of costly flight disruptions.5“Air Canada Flight Attendance Forced to Issue Strike Notice to End Unpaid Work,” Canadian Union of Public Employees, August 13, 2025, https://cupe.ca/air-canada-flight-attendants-forced-issue-strike-notice-end-unpaid-work. It was predicted, however, that the federal government would use its powers to come down on the side of the employer and force the flight attendants back to work. After all, as Bryan Evans, Carlo Fanelli, Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz argue in From Consent to Coercion: The Continuing Assault on Labour, since the 1970s, Canadian governments have been known to intervene in collective bargaining processes such as this one by implementing back-to-work legislation aimed at forcing workers back to their job. “In the first fifteen years after 1950,” they write, “there were only six instances of back-to-work legislation in total; there were 51 such instances in the following decade and a half, with half of these from 1975-1979 alone.”6Bryan Evans, Carlo Fanelli, Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz, From Consent to Coercion: The Continuing Assault on Labour (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2024.), 42. By the time of the Air Canada strike, this expansion of the state’s role to coerce workers in the service of capital had become a well-worn power that could be readily deployed against the striking flight attendants.
In fact, it took less than twelve hours from the time the workers walked off the job on August 16 for Carney’s Labour minister, Patty Hajdu, to begin invoking it. Hajdu directed the “independent” Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to order the flight attendants back to work, wielding her power to “maintain or secure industrial peace,” and citing a part of the Canadian Labour Code, Section 107, which applies to workers who fall under federal jurisdiction.
Unlike more traditional means of compelling workers back to work, which require a parliamentary vote, Section 107 can be invoked directly by a federal minister, making it a particularly authoritarian state mechanism. Its weaponization against the Air Canada workers sought to force them back to work where they would await the results of an imposed settlement.7Bethany Hastie and Keegan Nicol, “The Federal Government’s Repeated Use of Back-to-Work Powers Undermines Canadian Workers’ Right to Strike,” The Conversation, September 4, 2025, https://theconversation.com/the-federal-governments-repeated-use-of-back-to-work-powers-undermines-canadian-workers-right-to-strike-263605.
It was at this very point, however, that the workers rebelled. Determined and angered by the events that had transpired and buoyed by strong popular sentiment, the workers pressed forward. An earlier poll conducted by Abacus Data showed that 88 percent of the public supported paying the flight attendants for all duties performed on the ground, with 59 percent actually supporting their strike “even if it causes travel disruptions.”8“88% of Canadians Support Air Canada Flight Attendants, New Poll Confirms,” Canadian Union of Public Employees, August 15, 20225, https://cupe.ca/88-canadians-support-air-canada-flight-attendants-new-poll-confirms.
When the results of the ratification vote came in less than a week later, they were absolutely staggering. A statement issued by CUPE on September 6 announced that “flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have voted 99.1 percent against ratifying the company’s wage offer. Voter turnout was 94.6%.” A more emphatic rejection would hardly have been possible.
In this context, CUPE was ready to announce that the strike would continue on an “illegal” basis. The union’s national president, Mark Hancock, declared that the strike would not be stopped, stressing that neither the imposition of fines or the jailing of union leaders would deter the action that was now underway9“Union leader says he would take jail over forced end to Air Canada strike,” Reuters, August 18, 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/union-leader-says-jail-over-225020504.html?guccounter=1.
With the national airline now grounded, it was unclear how the heretofore predictable repressive state measures would escalate. What was very clear was that both the boss and the government were temporarily in a state of perplexed disarray.
As his company’s shares took a nosedive on the markets, Air Canada’s CEO, Mike Rousseau, told the media that “we’re still amazed by the fact that CUPE is openly not following the law…And that is very disappointing from our perspective.”10Rajesh Kumar Singh and Allison Lampert, “Air Canada CEO amazed by union’s defiance of ruling to end strike,” Reuters, August 19, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/air-canada-ceo-amazed-by-unions-defiance-ruling-end-strike-2025-08-19/. For its part, the Carney government appeared even more dumbfounded by the turn of events. Quite pathetically, Hajdu even pretended to be unaware of the issue of unpaid work and announced a plan to set up an inquiry into the situation.11“Government of Canada launches consultations on unpaid work in the airline sector,” Government of Canada, August 18, 2025, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2025/08/government-of-canada-launches-consultations-on-unpaid-work-in-the-airline-sector.html.
At this point, Air Canada and CUPE returned to the bargaining table for the purpose of securing a tentative agreement. In a swift move, the leadership of the union turned around and presented this settlement as an historic breakthrough, declaring that: “unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”12Abby Hughes, “Tentative Air Canada deal to include pay increases, at least 60 minutes ground pay,” CBC News, August 19, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air-canada-contract-dispute-flight-attendants-1.7612403.
It became clear that the flight attendants were expected to take immediate action to take down their picket lines and return to work, before even having the opportunity to examine and vote on the tentative agreement. The terms they were being asked to ratify fell far short of their expectations. The whole sequence of events raised serious concerns about the state of union democracy.
One clear lesson that came out of the incident is that preserving union democracy and holding the elected leadership accountable requires an energized and assertive rank and file. In the face of intensified attacks on workers today, it’s not enough to simply campaign for and elect more left-wing or militant union leaders. The urgent task of reinvigorating our trade unions must involve forms of activation and organization at the workplace level. We desperately need a rank and file movement that can challenge bureaucratic constraints and ensure that the decision making process is firmly in the hands of the union memberships. Given the moment of intensified class conflict in which we find ourselves, what is needed are far more democratic and dynamic forms of union activity and organization, forms which will never be attained on the basis of top down directives.
Devilish Details
On September 2 ahead of the flight attendants’ ratification vote, the Maple, a left-wing publication that focuses on analyzing and promoting trade union struggles, ran an article that elucidated the rising tide of rank and file dissatisfaction with the terms of the settlement. The article opened by noting the atypical nature of the contract ratification, and demonstrating why in convincing detail.
For example, the flight attendants would only be able to vote on the wage package that had been negotiated, but not on the other elements of the tentative agreement. Moreover, “should flight attendants vote against the proposed pay increase,” the terms stated, “wages will be decided through third-party arbitration, not by sending the bargaining team back to the negotiating table to hammer out a better deal with Air Canada.”13Adam D.K. King, “Air Canada Flight Attendants May Vote Down The Wage Package,” Maple, September 2, 2025, https://www.readthemaple.com/air-canada-flight-attendants-may-vote-down-the-wage-package/. In this way, as the Maple pointed out: “the ratification process involves significant constraints, limiting union members’ ability to determine the conditions of their work.”14King, “Air Canada Flight Attendants May Vote Down The Wage Package.”
The agreement also only went part of the way toward fulfilling the union’s demand to end the practice of unpaid work. “The tentative agreement will see Air Canada pay for 60 to 70 minutes of ground work depending on the aircraft type, starting at 50 percent of workers’ hourly rate and then increasing by 10, five, and five percentage points annually over the life of the contract, respectively.”15King, “Air Canada Flight Attendants May Vote Down The Wage Package.”
Crucially, the analysis in the Maple drew attention to increasingly sweltering signs of a major rank and file backlash against the deal, noting presciently that “there is now a real possibility that flight attendants could vote down the wage package.”16King, “Air Canada Flight Attendants May Vote Down The Wage Package.”
When the results of the ratification vote came in less than a week later, they were absolutely staggering. A statement issued by CUPE on September 6 announced that “flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have voted 99.1 percent against ratifying the company’s wage offer. Voter turnout was 94.6%.”17“Air Canada flight attendants reject Air Canada’s wage offer,” Canadian Union of Public Employees, September 6, 2025, https://cupe.ca/air-canada-flight-attendants-reject-air-canadas-wage-offer. A more emphatic rejection would hardly have been possible.
The statement appeared to backtrack, taking care to avoid earlier claims that the settlement represented a sweeping victory and emphasizing instead “the corrosive role the federal government played in these negotiations.”18Canadian Union of Public Employees, “Air Canada flight attendants reject Air Canada’s wage offer.” It further noted that “rather than maintaining their neutrality, the federal government kept their thumb on the scale throughout the bargaining process and gave Air Canada the leverage they needed to suppress flight attendants’ wages.”19Canadian Union of Public Employees, “Air Canada flight attendants reject Air Canada’s wage offer.”
While this is all undoubtedly true, the curtailing of union democracy that was involved can’t simply be laid at the door of the class enemy. The fact remains that a settlement was imposed on these workers that they utterly opposed without providing them with the means to influence the outcome.
For its part, Air Canada issued a statement noting that both parties had agreed that “if the tentative agreement was not ratified, the wage portion would be referred to mediation and, if no agreement was reached…to arbitration,” adding that flights would continue to operate without the threat of a strike or lock out.20Air Canada, “Air Canada and CUPE Head to Mediation Over Outstanding Issue,” Cision, September 06, 2025, https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/air-canada-and-cupe-head-to-mediation-over-outstanding-issue-853482220.html
Past and Future Struggles
The readiness of the flight attendants to defy the back-to-work order marks one of the rare moments in Canadian history that a trade union has been on the precipice of seriously challenging the state regulated system of so-called labor relations. It is in these moments that the possibility of going beyond the circumscribed and controlled forms of struggle that this system is prepared to tolerate comes into focus.
The struggle of the Air Canada workers is of such critical importance precisely because it is a prelude to even greater battles. Faced with Trump’s America First turn and the tariff measures that accompany it, the Carney government is seeking to pass on the costs of the trade crisis to the working class.
Between 1995 and 1998, unions and social movements in Ontario took up a struggle against a far right, austerity driven Conservative government. The Ontario Days of Action campaign, as it was called, achieved enormously powerful levels of mobilization, with mass rallies and city-wide general strikes. The campaign successfully challenged the framework of the Ontario Labor Relations Act, which forbids strikes while collective agreements are in effect. But while it represented a major act of defiance, the campaign ultimately fell short of challenging the Conservative government to its fullest potential.
As I wrote in my reflection for Midnight Sun in 2023, “while the campaign involved city-wide strikes that broke the rules and provided an inspiring indication of working-class power, the union leadership of the time engaged in these tactics with considerable reluctance. No plan to escalate the struggle to winning levels was ever advanced, and after the momentum of the actions had been lost, the whole effort was abandoned.”21John Clarke, “Beyond the Rituals of Class Compromise,” Midnight Sun, January 4, 2023, https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/beyond-the-rituals-of-class-compromise/.
The results of the failure to advance that struggle to the levels required to obtain victory are with us still: degraded social programs and impoverished communities. The right wing austerity agenda continued following the Days of Action, and does so to the present day.22Clyde Worker’s Committee, To All Clyde Workers (Glasgow: C.W.C, 1915), available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/gallacher/1915/clyde-committee.htm.
At the end of 2022, yet another Conservative government in Ontario used repressive legislation to rob tens of thousands of education workers, members of a different CUPE unit, of the right to strike. This action also sought to impose a substandard settlement on them. As with the previous case, workers acted in defiance, setting in motion a shakeup of the government and posing incredible possibilities for a broad and popular struggle against the austerity agenda.
Faced with this challenge, however, the government offered to repeal the legislation if CUPE would take down its picket lines and return to the bargaining table. The result of this demobilization was a settlement that provided wage increases well below the rate of inflation for these hard-pressed workers.
Presented with a virtual fait accompli and with the provincial and national structures of CUPE pressing hard for it to be accepted, the deal was accepted by the workers. Yet some 27 percent voted against it. The leadership of the education workers’ CUPE unit conceded that they were recommending it with the greatest reluctance.
A different approach was entirely possible, as I pointed out in a 2023 article for Spectre: “had Ford’s offer been met with a clear statement that the strike would end when his government put an offer on the table that was acceptable to the education workers, the unions would have been much more able to force better terms out of the Conservatives.”23John Clarke, “Beyond Compromise and Constraint: Class Struggle in Ontario,” Spectre, January 10, 2023, https://doi.org/10.63478/PH4LR6JF.
Rank and File Democracy
There is a glaring contradiction between the readiness of the CUPE leadership to defy back-to-work legislation, on the one hand, and the desire to settle quickly and unsatisfactorily once they have taken this step, on the other. I would argue that the explanation for this lies in the state regulated system under which unions have operated many years, and the bureaucratization that this has engendered.
This system has become complex, legalistic and centered around individual collective agreements. As such, it provides severely limited avenues for direct action by workers. This has resulted in a tendency to demobilize union memberships, while distorting the role of representatives. Over time, the representative layer has come to develop, to a significant degree, its own perspectives and interests.
For union leaders, back-to-work legislation undermines their role, actually preventing the union from negotiating deals at the bargaining table. In this situation, the option to defy the order, though daunting, is sometimes considered despite its risky nature and the threat of serious consequences. If they are able to achieve a victory by getting both parties to return to the table, the eagerness to find a compromise, even a poor one, is significant.
From the standpoint of rank and file workers, however, defying back-to-work legislation is important only to the extent that it enables them to win real gains and reverse the losses that have resulted from years of austerity. Hence why it is so essential to uphold the basic union principle of “no contract, no work” and to ensure that the power to accept or reject tentative agreements remains in the hands of rank and file union members.
The struggle of the Air Canada workers is of such critical importance precisely because it is a prelude to even greater battles. Faced with Trump’s America First turn and the tariff measures that accompany it, the Carney government is seeking to pass on the costs of the trade crisis to the working class. For instance, should the massive and devastating 15 percent cut to federally delivered public services go through as expected, we can foresee similar measures passed by provincial and territorial governments.24Adam D.K. King, “Chrétien-Era Austerity Levels May Soon Return Under Carney,” Maple, August 18, 2025, https://www.readthemaple.com/chretien-era-austerity-levels-may-soon-return-under-carney/.
Given this context, we can imagine major job losses and other attacks on public sector workers, starting at the federal level. Carney and his ministers are currently licking their wounds following their failed attempt to cower the Air Canada workers with a back-to-work order, but we can have no doubts that they will be better prepared and far more ruthless in the fights that are brewing.
A strong and united movement will be needed in the face of these attacks, including a readiness to defy back-to-work measures. This will be an essential element of the struggle, and what it will take to defeat austerity measures and secure real gains for workers.
The fight against Carney’s class war measures will require a movement that is as dynamic and democratic as possible and this includes the direct involvement of the union rank and file. In the days ahead, we would do well to embrace an approach that was advanced by the rank and file militants who established the Clyde Workers Committee in Scotland during World War One: “We will support the [union] officials just ‘so long as they rightly represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately they misrepresent them.”