The China Mail - Air Canada flight attendants vow to defy back-to-work order as strike talks resume

Roughly 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job after midnight Saturday, insisting the airline had failed to address their demands for higher wages and compensation for unpaid ground work, including during boarding.

Canada's national carrier, which flies directly to 180 cities domestically and abroad, said the strike had forced cancellations impacting 500,000 people.

Over the weekend, federal labor minister Patty Hajdu invoked a legal provision to halt the strike and force both sides into binding arbitration.

Following Hajdu's intervention, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), a regulatory tribual, ordered the flight attendants back to work Sunday.

The flight attendants' union said it would defy the order, forcing Air Canada to walk back plans to partially restore service.

CIRB regulators upped the pressure Monday.

It ordered the union "to resume the performance of their duties immediately and to refrain from engaging in unlawful strike activities," Air Canada said in a statement.

The tribunal gave the Canadian Union of Public Employees until 12:00 pm (1600 GMT) to communicate to members that they "are required to resume the performance of their duties," the carrier added.

Speaking after that deadline, CUPE president Mark Hancock told reporters the solution "has to be found at a bargaining table," and that the union will not respect the tribunal's ruling.

"None of us want to be in defiance of the law," he said, but stressed the union would not waver in advocating for people asked to work hours on the ground during flight delays without "getting paid a dime."

If Air Canada "thinks that planes will be flying this afternoon, they're sorely mistaken," Hancock said.

The union said later Monday that it had resumed talks with the airline as part of "continued attempts to reach a fair deal."

The evening meetings were taking place in Toronto with the assistance of a mediator, William Kaplan, CUPE's Air Canada component said in a statement on Facebook.

But it added that "at this time, the strike is still on, and the talks have just commenced."

- Carney 'disappointed' -

Rafael Gomez, an industrial relations expert at the University of Toronto, told AFP the union may be on solid legal footing.

The provision "is written in such a way that it's really for a situation where strikes have gone on a long time and there's no way forward," he said, suggesting that standard could not credibly apply to a strike that is just a few days old.

Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Monday it was "disappointing" that eight months of negotiations between the carrier and union did not produce an agreement.

"We recognize very much the critical role that flight attendants play in keeping Canadians and their families safe as they travel," he said.

"It is important that they're compensated equitably."

But, he added, Canada faced a situation where hundreds of thousands of citizens and visitors were facing travel uncertainty.

On Thursday, Air Canada detailed the terms offered to cabin crew, indicating a senior flight attendant would on average make CAN$87,000 ($65,000) by 2027.

CUPE has described Air Canada's offers as "below inflation (and) below market value."

In a statement issued before the strike began, the Business Council of Canada warned an Air Canada work stoppage would exacerbate the economic pinch already being felt from US President Donald Trump's tariffs.

C.Mak--ThChM