Are airports headed for a hard landing?

Strikes, labour shortages could disrupt travel for months, unions warn

As delays and cancellations continue to plague Canadian air travellers, advocates say low wages and poor working conditions could be the final straw for many workers in the industry, leading to ongoing labour shortages and potential for strikes or work actions in the coming months.

Rena Kisfalvi, who leads the Canadian Union of Public Employees local representing about 1,000 Sunwing flight attendants, said it’s clear the ongoing chaos in airports is linked to staffing struggles across the industry, struggles she said aren’t being addressed.

“I just don’t see an end to it. It’s going to be a slow rebuild,” she said.

Many workers are on the brink of quitting an already understaffed industry, said Kisfalvi, and conditions have worsened for those left behind. Without better pay and working conditions on the table from employers and the government, she thinks strikes and work actions will become more common in the air transportation industry in the coming months.

“This is the boiling point,” she said.

Across the air transportation industry, thousands of workers are currently in bargaining, including security screeners at multiple airports, WestJet clerks at two airports, and Canada Border Security Agency officers.

David Lipton with the United Steelworkers union, which represents around 2,000 airport security workers, said the union’s members are in bargaining at several airports, including in Ottawa, where a recent offer was rejected by workers because it didn’t offer a high enough wage increase.

In this tight labour market, many workers are leaving for other jobs, said Lipton, while those remaining are overworked and underpaid.

It’s not yet clear what strike action by the screeners could look like, he said — it’s up to the Canada Industrial Relations Board to determine how much of their job is considered essential. So if workers do vote to strike, it may be a partial strike or other type of work action if they are considered too essential to fully walk off the job, said Lipton.

Security screeners represented by Teamsters Canada are also up for bargaining at the Winnipeg and Edmonton airports.

At the Vancouver airport, screening agents are in a “very tough” round of bargaining, said Dave Flowers, president of District 140 at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents some 4,000 airport security workers in B.C. and Ontario.

The employer, Allied Universal, which is a contractor for Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), has offered zero wage increase for the first year of the contract, said Flowers. Meanwhile, he said pay and working conditions are leading to difficulties retaining workers. Recently, screeners held a rally outside the airport to demand better pay and conditions.

Allied did not provide a response by publication time.

A spokesperson for GardaWorld, the contract employer for screeners in Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton and Winnipeg, said the company is working diligently to ensure effective hiring and training.

“The staff shortages experienced in May have been addressed through successful recruitment over the past six weeks,” they wrote in an email.

A CATSA spokesperson said the agency respects the bargaining process, and said negotiations “don’t affect the security screening of passengers at the airport.”

John Gradek, a former Air Canada executive and head of McGill University’s Global Aviation Leadership Program, said over the past decade, the use of subcontractors has increased in the air transportation industry, resulting in lower wages.

Now, after COVID-19 layoffs, the industry is caught in a panic trying to rehire, said Gradek, but also trying to retain workers in an increasingly difficult job and tight labour market.

“The competition for people is intense,” he said.

And it’s not only security screeners that are asking for a better hand.

Leslie Dias, director of airlines for Unifor, said there are shortages of all kinds of workers across the air transportation industry, born of longtime systemic problems that have now hit crisis level.

But with unemployment in Canada at a record low, workers now have more power, said Dias.

Unifor covers more than 16,000 workers across the air transportation industry, including pilots, ground handlers and air traffic controllers. (Unifor also represents workers at the Toronto Star.)

Some employers in the industry are raising pay outside of collective agreements, said Dias, which she characterized as rare. In bargaining, some workers are getting substantial increases, she added, such as a recent collective agreement signed with Airport Terminal Services that saw a $5 wage increase for those workers.

But for other workers, the dial isn’t moving, said Dias. For example, WestJet agents in Calgary and Vancouver, who are currently in bargaining, haven’t seen their pay scale increase since 2017, she said, except for when the federal minimum wage went up, exceeding their starting wage. They top out under $24 an hour, compared to around $30 for the same role at Air Canada, said Dias.

Jim Stanford, economist and director of the Centre for Future Work, said it’s clear the industry isn’t doing enough to improve the jobs on offer.

A July report by the centre found that in the transportation industry overall, wages have declined slightly over the past year, and inflation has taken an even bigger bite out of purchasing power. And as the industry ramps up to meet demand, the job is getting harder. This Tuesday, CUPE put out a statement condemning “mounting verbal and physical abuse against flight attendants and other airline workers” as airline delays and cancellations continue.

“It must be hell to work in an airport these days,” said Stanford.

Whether these workers are able to strike if bargaining sours depends on the role and the judgment of the labour board and the government, said Stanford. But one thing is for certain: workers have high expectations.

“Airlines and other employers … are going to have to come to the table big time, or we will absolutely see significant work stoppages and even more chaos in air travel,” he said.

The WestJet agents will take a strike vote this summer if the employer’s offer doesn’t improve, said Dias.

A WestJet spokesperson told the Star that the airline is preparing for a potential work stoppage at the Calgary and Vancouver airports, looking at possible reassignments to cover for striking workers so that guests don’t experience disruptions.

During the pandemic, some workers already got better deals — for example, in 2021 more than 3,000 WestJet cabin crew ratified their first collective agreement with CUPE 4070, a five-year agreement that includes wage increases and significant movement toward industry-standard scheduling and pay calculation rules, according to the union.

Later the same year, the union reached agreements with Swoop and WestJet Encore.

According to Gary Russell, chair of the Air Canada Pilots Association, the 4,200 pilots the union represents are under a collective agreement that ends in 2023, as well as a 10-year framework agreement that provides a two per cent annual wage increase, but removes the right to strike.

However, an area of concern for the union is the pay for pilots in their first four years of service, Russell said in an email. Despite years of experience and the cost of becoming a pilot, pilots in their first year at Air Canada earn less than $60,000, he said.

Air Canada has taken steps to increase compensation for some employees during this time, said spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick in an email.

“We have taken steps to increase compensation given the extraordinary efforts of our employees to serve our customers in the face of industry challenges. Among other things, we have increased starting wages for baggage handlers, flight attendant compensation has been changed to allow for aircraft gate holds, and we are paying additional overtime for airport and call centre employees,” he said.

‘‘ It must be hell to work in an airport these days. JIM STANFORD ECONOMIST AND DIRECTOR OF CENTRE FOR FUTURE WORK