How two architects behind Canada's housing catalogue built a Toronto fiveplex for changing families
Ulster House was built by two architects who were both project managers for Canada's National Housing Design Catalogue. Andrew Francis Wallace Toronto S
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23 minutes ago
What is ground pay? A sticking point in the Air Canada flight attendant strike, explained
If you've been following the Air Canada (new window) strike throughout its twists and turns (new window) , you've likely heard the term ground pay, or noticed flight attendants holding signs decrying unpaid labour. More than 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job early Saturday morning, leading to hundreds of flights being grounded. On Monday, striking Air Canada flight attendants (new window) defied a federal back-to-work order and abruptly halted the airline's plans to resume operations. Later in the day, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu told The Canadian Press that the federal government is launching a probe (new window) into allegations of unpaid work in the airline sector as the work stoppage stretched on. One of the key complaints from the union representing Air Canada flight attendants is that workers are not paid for duties performed before take-off. Our members' only goal is to be paid for their time at work, CUPE National secretary-treasurer Candace Rennick said in a media conference Monday. Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) have been in contract talks for about eight months, and they reached a tentative deal (new window) early Tuesday. Enlarge image (new window) People stand in line for an Air Canada counter at Halifax Stanfield International Airport on Monday amidst a nation-wide strike by Air Canada flight attendants represented by CUPE. Photo: CBC / Andrew Lam The airline's last offer included a 38 per cent increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions, over four years, that it said would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada. But the union pushed back, saying the proposed eight per cent raise in the first year didn't go far enough because of inflation. Pay has been a main sticking point in the contract talks and, specifically, so-called ground pay, or compensation for work flight attendants do when planes aren't in the air. The two sides gave few details of what's in the tentative deal, but the union said in a statement provided to CBC News that unpaid work is over. How did ground pay become such a major issue in a dispute that upended travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers? Here's what you need to know. What is ground pay? Right now, Air Canada flight attendants are only paid when the flight is in the air, as the non-profit Angus Reid Institute explains (new window) . And they say this leaves them with unpaid work loading and unloading passengers, and when there are cancellations and delays, the Institute says. This is a common practice in the North American airline industry, and not unique to Air Canada. Ground pay would compensate flight attendants for the work done on the ground before boarding and after deplaning, including safety procedures and assisting passengers. Last year, Wesley Lesosky, a flight attendant and president of the CUPE air division, said in a news conference (new window) that on average, flight attendants do 35 hours of unpaid work per month. It's not just the assisting of the passengers getting on the plane and saying, 'please put your bag here,' Lesosky told Reuters (new window) earlier in August. WATCH | CUPE president says he'll risk jail time: What we're looking for is, 'Hey you require us to show up an hour prior, you require us to start safety briefings, safety checks. You require us to assist on the ground.' That's what we're asking to be paid for. The airline proposed ground pay at 50 per cent of a flight attendant's hourly rate, according to CUPE's Air Canada component. The union declined the proposal and is asking for ground work to be paid at 100 per cent. Why aren't flight attendants paid for this work? In a nutshell, because airlines have such small profit margins, explained Ian Lee, an associate professor of management in the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa. The airline industry has, in aggregate, lost more more money than it's made money, Lee told CBC News. I tell my students, don't ever invest in two industries: restaurants and airlines, because you'll lose your shirt over time. The unpaid groundwork practice has been around in North America for decades, Lee said, emerging not long after then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter deregulated the airline industry (new window) . Then, in the early 1980s, the recession hit. In 1981, there was an air traffic controller strike, and suddenly the industry started suffering losses, notes the Smithsonian's National Air and Space museum (new window) . Enlarge image (new window) Protesters interrupt a news conference with Air Canada officials in Toronto, on Aug. 14, 2025. Photo: CBC / Evan Mitsui Struggling to survive, airlines cut wages and benefits, but this strategy resulted in strikes and lower productivity, added the Smithsonian. As a 2024 literature review published in the journal Labor History (new window) argues, the persistence of unpaid ground time illustrates a trend of systemic prioritization of corporate profit over workplace equity. LISTEN | What the Air Canada strike is really about (new window) Why did this start becoming an issue recently? There have been more delays on the ground ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, explained Lee, which in general means more unpaid work for flight attendants. He says those delays have become transparently clear in the last few years. For instance, in the week of June 27 to July 3, 2022, 57 per cent of flights at the top 15 airports in Canada were delayed, according to Transport Canada (new window) . That decreased just slightly to 45 per cent the week of Jan. 2 to 8, 2023. Overall, in 2024, Air Canada saw 71 per cent of the nearly 386,000 flights it flew land on time, and 71 per cent of the approximately 192,000 flights WestJet flew in 2024 landed on time — putting the two airlines at the bottom of an annual ranking of North American carriers, according to aviation analytics company Cirium. (new window) If you're sitting on the ground for an hour or two at the gate because you're not cleared to leave, or you're parked at the gate because you're not cleared to go in, then the flights attendants are just putting in a lot more work that's unpaid, Lee said. What do other airlines do? In Canada, Lee says some airlines have been more progressive than Air Canada in negotiating higher compensation for ground work pre- and post-boarding. And he says it's been uneven in the U.S., too. In other words, it's kind of a Wild West. CUPE spokesperson Hugh Pouliot told CBC News last week (new window) that Porter Airlines started paying flight attendants for some boarding duties this year while some smaller carriers — such as Pascan Aviation — pay full salary for ground duties. But CUPE's WestJet component has said (new window) that its members face similar barriers for pre-boarding and deplaning tasks that occur while the plane is grounded. The union will negotiate with the airline when its collective agreement expires at the end of the year. Air Canada's demands on unpaid work follow gains recently won by flight attendants in the United States. New labour agreements at American Airlines and Alaska Airlines legally require carriers to start the clock for paying flight attendants when passengers are boarding, not when the flight starts to taxi down the runway. Those gains came after Delta Air Lines, whose flight attendants are not unionized, instituted boarding pay for its cabin crew at half of their hourly wages in 2022 when they were trying to organize. American Airlines flight attendants are also compensated for some hours between flights. United Airlines cabin crews, who voted down a tentative contract deal last month, want a similar provision. Corrections An earlier version of this story on the CBC News website counted WestJet among progressive airlines on pay issues. WestJet does not compensate its flight attendants before boarding and the union representing them will be negotiating with the airline when their collective agreement expires at the end of the year. Aug 18, 2025 8:28 PM EDT Natalie Stechyson (new window) · CBC News · Senior Writer & Editor Natalie Stechyson has been a writer and editor at CBC News since 2021. She covers stories on social trends, families, gender, human interest, as well as general news. She's worked as a journalist since 2009, with stints at the Globe and Mail and Postmedia News, among others. Before joining CBC News, she was the parents editor at HuffPost Canada, where she won a silver Canadian Online Publishing Award for her work on pregnancy loss. You can reach her at X (new window) Instagram (new window) With files from Jenna Benchetrit, Darren Major, Reuters, the Canadian Press, the Associated Press
2 hours ago
Air Canada, flight attendants reach tentative deal to end strike
CUPE, which represents more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, said that after nine hours of talks with the assistance of the chief mediator appointed by the federal government, the deal struck will be presented to its membership, who will have an opportunity to ratify it. Among the sticking points for the union was the issue of pay for work performed while planes are on the ground. While not elaborating on the issue, the union said in a statement provided to CBC News that unpaid work is over. CUPE advised its members to fully co-operate with resumption of operations. Some cancellations expected in coming days Air Canada also confirmed the tentative deal in a statement and said that flights would gradually return beginning Tuesday evening. Michael Rousseau, the airline's president and chief executive officer, advised customers to be patient as full restoration of service may require a week or more, but said that everyone at Air Canada is doing everything possible to enable them to travel soon. The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. We deeply regret and apologize for the impact on them of this labour disruption, said Rousseau in the statement. WATCH l Passengers left with bad options, or none at all: During the transition to full resumption of service, the airline expected that some flights would still be cancelled. Rousseau said the airline would offer options to customers in such a scenario, including a full refund, a credit for future travel and, if space allowed, rebooking on other airlines. Pearson airport, near Toronto, advised passengers to check their flight status over the coming days before travelling to terminals, and said it has deployed additional staff across the terminals and baggage areas to assist passengers and support the startup operations. Air Canada operates around 700 flights daily. The airline had estimated on Monday that 500,000 customers would be affected by flight cancellations. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said as of Monday afternoon, Air Canada had called off at least 1,219 domestic flights and 1,339 international flights since last Thursday, when the carrier began gradually suspending its operations ahead of the strike and lockout. Binding arbitration had been rejected The strike began early Saturday, but just hours later, the federal government invoked a section in the Canadian Labour Code to order binding arbitration through the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB). CUPE rejected that procedural step by Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu and accused Air Canada of anticipating such an intervention and not bargaining in good faith. CIRB characterized the union's defiance of the back-to-work order over the weekend as unlawful. Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday he had been disappointed by the impasse, but that it was important that flight attendants were compensated equitably at all times. WATCH l Patty Hajdu defends the government intervention: The union served the required 72-hour notice of its intention to strike last Wednesday, after negotiations for the collective bargaining agreement that expired on March 31 had failed to lead to a new pact. It was the first such job action by Air Canada flight attendants since the 1980s. The union and the airline both agreed to the mediator, William Kaplan, who previously assisted in Canada Post labour negotiations. With files from The Canadian Press
Cision Canada
2 hours ago
- Cision Canada
CUPE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS PROVE BARGAINING, NOT CARNEY'S SECTION 107, DELIVERS DEALS
OTTAWA, ON, /CNW/ - Air Canada flight attendants, members of CUPE, have delivered a decisive blow to employers who think they can sidestep fair bargaining by hiding behind Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code. Prime Minister Carney's government chose to impose Section 107 just hours after the strike began—an unprecedented and heavy-handed move to tilt the scales in the employer's favour. With the backing of the entire labour movement, CUPE stood its ground, defied the order, and forced the company back to the bargaining table—where a fair deal was reached. The outcome makes one thing clear: Section 107 is no longer a reliable weapon for employers. By refusing to bow to government interference, CUPE flight attendants exposed Section 107 for what it is: an unconstitutional violation of workers' Charter-protected right to free and fair collective bargaining. Any employer thinking of leaning on Section 107 in the future should think twice—it's a crutch that just snapped. Deals are made where they should be—at the bargaining table. That's good for workers, good for communities, and good for building lasting relationships between unions and employers. The entire labour movement is grateful to flight attendants for their strength and perseverance in standing firm for these rights. The last 24 hours have shown that Section 107 is unconstitutional, unenforceable, and corrosive to free collective bargaining. Canada's unions are calling for its removal from the Canada Labour Code. We urge all parties in Parliament to make this a priority in the upcoming fall session—because protecting workers' Charter rights should never be optional, and employers must never again be allowed to rely on Section 107 to delay or deny fair bargaining. The lesson from this strike is undeniable: workers win when they fight, and collective agreements are made through negotiation, not government-imposed edicts. Section 107 has been dealt a blow it shouldn't recover from—and that's good news for every worker in Canada.
