CUPE: Airline industry appears to be flying the plane on federal government’s unpaid work probe

OTTAWA, ON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CUPE’s Airline Division, the union representing 20,000 flight attendants across Canada, is raising concerns about the impartiality and legitimacy of the federal government’s probe into unpaid work in the airline sector, as it enters its second phase.

“The parameters of this process have been noticeably tilted towards the industry position,” said Wesley Lesosky, President of the Airline Division of CUPE. “The government has done very little to avoid the impression that it’s actually the industry flying the plane.”

The first phase of the probe concluded with a request to airlines to perform minimum wage compliance self-audits. The federal government has recommended – but will not require – union participation in the audits.

“This is like asking drivers to report themselves for speeding,” said Lesosky. “This will seriously undermine confidence in the results.”

Other elements of the audit also raise additional concern:

• There is no clear definition of what constitutes “hours of work” for flight attendants, which will allow airlines to pick and choose which duty hours are covered by wages, leaving the door open to a continuation of unpaid work.
• The audit period arbitrarily excludes key peak travel months – including the Christmas holidays and March break – when storms, delays, and operational disruptions are at their highest. These are precisely the times when unpaid work pressures intensify.
• The government is permitting extremely small and unrepresentative audit samples. Airlines with workforces as large as 10,500 flight attendants may audit as few as 40 employees pay records. The results of an audit so narrow will produce methodologically flawed and unreliable results.
• No requirement for random sampling. Airlines may pick and choose who they audit, with no guarantee that workers facing the most serious unpaid work issues will be included.
• Where violations are found, the corrective measures are not strong enough. The remedy for being caught underpaying employees should not be to pay minimum wage; it should be legislative and regulatory changes to guarantee that all hours are paid at the negotiated rate of pay.

“Flight attendants deserve to be paid for all hours worked, at their regular rate of pay,” said Lesosky. “This investigation should be an opportunity to fix a longstanding problem, not minimize it by helping the industry sweep it under the rug.”

CUPE’s Airline Division met with the federal government today, April 1, to register the union’s concerns and call on the government to correct course by strengthening the audit process to be robust and representative, and by listening to the voices of workers impacted – not just industry CEOs. The ball is now in the government’s court.